Well… I've taken my beating of this firestorm. I'm a Haruto Saki fan too, and what I did in that previous chapter was… well… the mistake is that because I wanted to create some suspense, I forgot to put some bumper on to ease the impact. This is one of those case where too much of a good thing is not always a good thing. For those of you who are curious for the answer to that abominable scene at the end of the previous chapter, feel free to skip to the last part of the chapter. For those of you, who can bear it, please properly go through this chapter from beginning to the end. Trust me. It's worth it.

00000000000000

Their bodies engulfed her from every direction. Her face was covered in their liquid, as is her whole body. They pierced from every opening their maddened eyes can found, pouring everything they got, sending immeasurable cacophony of ecstasy throughout her body…

…until Rukino Saki's eyes blared open in shock in blessed wakefulness.

The first she saw was the ceiling of the apartment. Her apartment… their apartment. It's an apartment whose room she and Haruto appropriated for their use. Though lately her husband had been spending more time in the county prison, owing to the increasing number of its occupants.

Saki wildly looked around, checking the surroundings. No one else is here. No pile of naked fucked up men lying around… no… no sign of that depraved orgy she saw just now.

"It's just… a dream…?" Panting up and down, Saki sighed as she rubbed her face with her palm… that was when she realized just how sweaty her hand is… as is her whole body. Her heart is still beating, and her body is still in so much heat. She looked down and blushed. Her groin was so drenched, it's virtually a pool down there. "Stupid, stupid perverted me… what was I thinking? I'd never do that with a bunch of random guys!" Her heart, soul, and body belong to Haruto and no others!

That was when she also noticed another reason she woke up. The sound of the roaring alarm. "What's happening now?"

00000000000000

The alarms blared allover the place when an unauthorized access to the Valvrave was detected.

Pino was the first to disappear as she moved into the system to find the source of this intrusion. As it turns out, that intrusion came from Malefic's Firewall system being wiped out wholesale… by a very desperate and manic Akira.

"Akira-chan, what are you doing? You're not supposed to be anywhere close to your Valvrave, Haruto's orders!" Pino popped out on the screens of Akira's laptop, but she didn't answer and keep working like a hacker possessed. Pino quickly noticed the girl is in her worst episode of Panic attack yet. Her ears are all but deaf but her mind still has the sharpness of a world class hacker that she is. Pino erected additional firewalls to bar her pace, but Akira goes through them like they didn't even exist. She was that desperate to get back into her cockpit.

There's only so much Pino can do in the digital world. The only way to stop what she's doing is by stopping her physically. "Haruto, Akira's hacking through the securities I've set up, she's trying to get into her Valvrave again. And her Runes have barely recovered." Pino contacted Haruto. "I'm recreating the firewalls to bar her gait, but she cracked them open faster than I can think it. I can't hold her back for much longer."

In the County Prison, Haruto had just returned Ashra to her cell and locked the prison bar when Pino reported him on the developing event. "Just do the best you can Pino. I'll see if I can send some guys to catch and calm her down. She's in shock. She just bit Shoko in the neck, drained a bit of her runes."

"How is she?"

"Shoko's fine. Marie's with her right now. She's taking her to the hospital as we speak." Haruto understood Akira didn't mean for it to happen. He knew what it feels like when their Magius side took over. "I'm calling Satomi and send him there. Just hold her back for as long as you can." And Haruto quickly dialed Satomi's number. He didn't need to say much. Just four words. "Satomi-san… it's Akira."

And Satomi cut him off there, having added the alarm and her sister's name together to get the whole picture for him to run in panic towards the Malefic's Hangar.

Judging from this conversation, Ashra can easily guess what's happening. "This… 'Akira'… when was the last time she fed?"

Haruto turned to Ashra looking at him knowingly. "She hadn't fed at all since her transformation. Akira was the last to be transformed a little over two months ago. In all that time she never feed because unlike us, she saw little direct combat, so her Rune consumption has been low… until that battle last month."

"How careless of you." Ashra shook her head in disapproval. "A Magius youngling should've learned the taste of Runes from the moment they were born."

"My bad." Haruto wanted to beat himself in the face for this mishap.

"No need to blame yourself too harshly, Tokishima Haruto. This is our nature. This is who we are." Ashra noted solemnly. "Even the eldest of Magius can still fall victim to our baser instinct."

Haruto quickly understood what Ashra meant. She's re-emphasizing her earlier point, that Magius feeds on human not out of choice, but out of necessity. "I'm not going to say that humans are different. Even humans can also be reduced to their animal nature from time to time. But… just because that's our true nature, that doesn't mean we have to give in to it completely. That's the choice we can make… as living beings."

"Is that what it means to survive as a human?"

"No." Haruto smiled. "That's what it means to be alive."

Ashra didn't argue, and Haruto also had other matters to attend to, ASAP. As soon as the prisoners are back on their cell, Haruto bolted off to where he's needed.

00000000000000

Meanwhile, the Pino Akira standoff is reaching its end.

And Pino knew she's losing. She vainly tried to reach her with words. "Akira, calm down and listen to me! I understand how you feel, but getting back into the Valvrave won't solve the problem. It'll just going to make things worse!"

But Akira wouldn't listen. Pretty soon the last of the firewalls Pino set was ripped to shreds. Just as Akira opened the cockpit hatch, her brother finally showed up. "Akira, stop!"

Hearing her brother's voice result in Akira thankfully stopped for a second. "Akira… what's wrong?" Satomi begged. "Akira? Come on. You can always talk to your brother?"

But upon seeing her brother, the memory what she's done to her best friend flashed in her mind yet again. Mortified, the girl shook her head and jumped into the cockpit. "AKIRA!" Satomi tried to stop her, but the cockpit hatch closed in on him. Soon, the Malefic lit up again and the machinery automatically dragged the Primate Engine through the launching procedure. And soon the Valvrave will launch to god knows where.

Satomi isn't going to wait for that to happen. He rushed back into the hangar with a plan already assembled. Kagerou won't be able to keep up with an Original Unit. Ra is too slow, and Carmilla's on patrol in another sector, Takahi won't be able to catch up to his sister in time. The Valvrave is DNA locked, which means there's only one unit he can use.

The unit he used to gain his immortality.

The still under repair Behemoth rose up to wakefulness, to the protesting roar of the Pit crew team. "Oi! That thing is still not done yet!" The Behemoth is still missing a whole arm, but Satomi didn't care. As fitting the fact it was piloted not by its first pilot, the Valvrave color became reversed, and the one armed Behemoth dashed to the dark space, chasing the purple glow so far ahead.

00000000000000

Chapter 10:

This is My Way

Meanwhile, Marie somehow managed to drag Shoko all the way to the hospital, where Rion immediately attend to her bloody neck.

"My goodness! Look at this mess! And you say Akira-chan did this?" Wiping away the bloodstain revealed a rather vicious bite on Shoko's skin due to the fact Akira's fangs must've yanked a bit of her flesh when she put the force to her jaws.

"Just be quick and… and patch me up!" Shoko looked like she's in a hurry.

Rion immediately surmised that the girl wanted to go somewhere as soon as she patched her up. Given the severity of this injury, that's clearly out of the question. "What are you saying!? You have to stay on bed until that wound is healed!"

But Shoko didn't seem to care. The only thing on her mind right now is her confused and terrified red haired friend. 'Akira…!'

Unfortunately, this gory scene drew far more attention than it should…

00000000000000

Satomi looked widely to every direction, he sees nothing but darkness. His radar didn't, couldn't pick up anything either, obviously. "Brilliant idea, Pino. Give the shut in super hacker sister of mine a super computer Valvrave and equip that Valvrave with the most advanced Stealth system in the known and unknown world. Just brilliant!"

Satomi shook his head. Now is not the time for whining. He needs to find his sister quickly. And if he had to, he'll do it the old fashioned way.

The Behemoth stretched out his arms and all available Titan Fists detached from their ports, and the three sense never sensors on each fist sprang up and checked the perimeter. He's a pair short of course, but 42 extra heads are better than none. And also, to further spread the search range, the fingers on the titan fist also detached and spread out. That's another additional 70 eyes on the hunt.

00000000000000

"That Renbokuji took the Behemoth!?" A-Drei was clearly less than pleased that a damaged Valvrave is on the loose.

"He probably intends to use the Valvrave's many familiar drones to scout the area." Haruto is unlocking his Valvrave so that he can also join the search.

"Well, I'll give him some points for clever thinking. But we're still talking about searching the stealthiest of Valvraves whose pilot clearly did not want to be found." A-drei is also gearing up to board an available Kirschbaum, currently being loaded with many unmanned Waffe.

"Can I help?" Haruto and A-Drei stopped what they're doing for a second to look at the speaker. It was Sakurai Aina who looked at them with concern. "Ra's scarab drones can also cover a wide range."

"No. The Carmilla is on her way here, but we can't afford to send all Valvraves away from the base just for a search and rescue operation. At least one original unit must stay here, to guard the perimeter." A-Drei argued.

"I know. But it's okay. Ra has a feature that would allow her to help with the search without leaving her post."

00000000000000

Saki is starting to think that perhaps it's a better idea if she had stayed in bed and monitor the progress of Akira's search via her phone. The thing is, she's not the kind of girl who would just sit tight and wait for things to get better themselves.

Plus, that disturbing nightmare she had is haunting her waking hours. She needed to clear her head of that horrid images or it'll drive her nuts. 'Maybe I ought to find a book on stress on Pregnant Mothers…' Just as Saki meditates on that train of thought, she heard voices being raised in anger. Instinctively, she hid in the dark corner, completely out of sight.

"Just what the fuck are you retards doing?"

"I… don't know, chief. We couldn't remember a thing."

"That's not a good enough excuse as to why we found you 15 idiots butt naked en masse in that room. What, you jerked off on each other until you faint?"

"Oh, god, that is just disturbing!"

Saki blinked. '15 people!?' she dared herself to peek.

There's a gathering of people, the Moon Colonists, none of them look happy. But more importantly, they were armed. Somehow, they've managed to get their hands on some weaponry. Her best guess is that they bust open the local arms store or some of them had a secret stash of firearms that the army had missed. But then, as Saki start counting on their number, her heart skipped a beat when she saw familiar faces.

15 familiar faces.

The people she saw in that nightmare. Complete strangers if not for the fact they appeared in that twisted dream… or… is it a dream?

Saki turned her face away in horror. The possibilities are frightening to contemplate, pushing her almost to a breaking point. 'Could it be that… oh god… no… this can't be true… this… is…'

But as Saki continued to ponder this horrid possibility, events continue to play out.

"In summary, you dunderheads failed to capture that Prime Minister girl. Do we have a plan B?"

"I say we wait."

"Wait?"

"I told you kidnapping that… so called 'Prime Minister' is not the answer." A relatively calmer Colonist replied. "That girl isn't the true ruler of this place. It's that Tokishima kid. Him and his army of monsters. We outnumber them a 100 to 1, but he's got that big ass bot on his back. We need something to rival the size of the gun he's using to stand a chance." He's the colonist who asked Kibukawa of the possibility of human use Valvrave.

Everyone looked at each other and nodded to the man's point.

But then, another pale faced colonist joined the meeting to report on the recent event. "Guys! Listen to this. That Prime Minister Girl just now was attacked!"

"Attacked? By who?"

"I heard she was bitten by one of them monster kid!"

The crowd gasped, and many quickly huddled in to get more details. But the lack of accurate information saw to it that this incomplete report snowballed out of proportion, sending the crowd into a frenzy in a heartbeat.

"We must get these monsters out of here immediately. Now!"

"We still outnumber them, but soon, there may be more of them!"

"But how do we get past their giant robots!?"

"That's the thing! I think most of them had left the hangar. If we want to strike, now is the time!"

"That doesn't change the fact we can't hold out against their firepower!"

"We need giant robots of our own… Ah! If I recall correctly, the Dorssians had a score of those white robots!"

"Yeah, guarded in their base camp, heavily protected!"

"We need more weapons… but the heavier weapons here are stored in the county prison…"

The discussion suddenly stopped when the crowd realized their plan has been set. With Haruto away, the County Armory is undefended. They can use the weapons there to help them take over the Dorssian base, which will give them access to the biggest gun available to humans. "LET'S GO!"

Roaring and cheering, the mass of angry mob marched on their warpath, completely unaware of the eavesdropping Saki who had heard all she needs to know.

00000000000000

Meanwhile, outside the Moonbase, the remaining three Valvraves had gathered, along with one Kirschbaum, and an additional two Kagerous, Takahi's peerage.

"Ra's CF Scarab Pods are detachable." As if to emphasize this point, two of Ra's four blue pods detached from the shoulder. "The idea is that we can share a measure of Ra's defensive capability to other Valvraves."

Valvrave and Carmilla took one pod each and attached the Pod on the back of their shoulder armor. A minute later, their system registered and installed the new equipment, giving them control of the pod and its shield drones. The Kirschbaum is incompatible with Valvrave equipment, but it carries several fleets of Waffe for the search.

"However, unlike Ra, whose equipment allowed her to replenish the Scarab Drones, you'll only have a limited measure of shielding. But I suppose because this is a search and rescue, it won't matter much…" Aina explained.

"But keep your vigilance. We don't know how far that Hacker had gone to, or if her cruise had gone unnoticed."

And soon, the 5 Humanoid Mechs zoomed off to different directions, with Ra staying behind to guard the perimeter.

00000000000000

In general, the Moonbase can be divided into 4 sections. The center section is the city, the Lunar Polis, a metropolitan rest inside a giant dome of artificial weather simulator, a hundred times larger than that of the Module. This center section is filled with various civilian facilities, such as the Mall, theater, department stores, apartments and living houses, as well as office towers and various kinds of industrial plants. They even came with vast hydroponic plants as well as asteroid ore mining facilities. As expected this was also where most of the civilians dwell.

Encircling the city in a triangle are three massive military bases which not only serve to defend the city from attackers, it also double as starports as well as gateways to enter the city, the only way in and out of the Moonbase. After New Jior took over the moon, with some help of the Dorssians and Arus fleet, it is decided each forces will take one of this 'Starbase' to share the responsibility of guarding the Moonbase.

New Jior forces took the first StarBase and retrofitted it to support production and maintenance of the Valvraves, Kagerous and their pilots. With the Moon's production capability, they've replenished the number of their Kagerous and then some, and even multiply the Valvrave equipments that can be used to arm the Kagerous and many spare parts. Alas, they're a bit short on pilots. After all, they only have the students of the Sakimori high to count on, seeing normal people cannot pilot Kagerous. Of the 40 existing ones (minus a few destroyed recently) only a little over half of them have pilots. But thanks to the Original Units and the Valravn docked within, the shortage in numbers is more than covered for.

Dorssian forces took the second Starbase. Over 65% of the existing military forces in the Moonbase are Dorssians. But due to the lack of manpower needed to operate all three bases properly, their forces are now spread thin across the Moonbase. Due to their earlier occupation, there are plenty of Dorssian made military equipments and infrastructures scattered across the city. Granted, after the Moon Colonists had returned, Kriemhild see to it to sweep the whole city clean of any dangerous facilities such as Munitions barge, army bunkers and armories, but they left behind certain facilities of critical importance. Chief among them, the massive communications tower which allow unhampered communications between three bases, and beyond.

Arus suffered the most during the battle, and their forces, manpower wise, are only slightly above that of New Jior's. But they still had access to their cache of powerful warships. Hence why they were given the third Starbase, largest of the three, one with enough space to house their massive heavy cruisers.

00000000000000

In the county prison…

Ryuuji was entrusted by Haruto to look after the prison in his stead until this crisis passed. Seeing he's not immortal or armed with a giant robot to back him up, Ryuuji do so with the help of a squad of his most trusted soldiers. They know what to expect of their inhuman prisoners, they know what they must and mustn't do.

But an army of several hundred angry rioting mobs marching towards them is not exactly on the list of things they had expected… not this soon anyway.

Currently their guns managed to stay the angry mob's gait right at the perimeters of the building, but it won't hold them for long. Already their shouts can be heard by the prisoners in the building. And as expected when people start screaming "Kill them!", "Burn them!" and other shouts of that sort, the jail occupants grew somewhat restless.

Ryuuji quickly walked out of the building to meet with the rioting masses, hoping to calm the situation before it gets worse. "Calm down! CALM DOWN! Please!"

The mob stopped shouting, for the moment to give the former Prime Minister a chance to say his defense.

"Please! You mustn't be so hasty on dealing death and judgment!"

"Hasty!? Your own daughter nearly had her neck bitten off by one of this thing! How much longer do we have to wait? Until those monster start biting at us too!?"

"I called my daughter on my phone just now, she's alive and well telling me it's an accident!" Ryuuji showed the phone with her daughter's cheering face on its screen. "Please. No one else should get hurt today! Return to your homes!"

"How long before they start invading us at our homes!?"

"That's not going to happen!"

"You don't know that! Soon they'll round us up like livestock! Those things are out of control! How could you side with them!?" Soon, it became obvious the rioters are growing angrier and angrier by the second. Their paranoia and rage is already well out of control, overwhelming reason and rationality, fueled by their hate and grudge.

Something Ryuuji vainly tried to prevent. "Wait. Listen! Listen to me!"

"I say: We kill them all now before they kill us!"

"AYE!"

"No! Wait! Listen!" Unfortunately, at that point, it was too much. Ryuuji was shouted out by the mob. Some even began to throw Molotov bombs. The soldiers quickly moved in to shield the former Prime Minister. "Mr. Shashinami, you better get inside! QUICKLY!" Other things quickly followed, and the soldiers bunker down beneath their riot shields.

Pretty soon, the angry crowd finally mustered enough rage to summon their recklessness. The soldiers tried to bar the way, but the mob fell upon them, an unstoppable tide of angry muscle. Their shield wall collapsed in seconds, and the angry mob poured into the county prison, screaming murder and death. The armory was the first to be invaded. Flak Jacket, full body armor, Shotgun, riot shield, even Assault rifles and grenade launchers. Enough weapons to arm their small army.

"I've secured some panzers!"

"Alright! We'll take them! Okay people listen up!" The leader of the Mob whistled to get their attention. "We've got what we need! Time to storm the base!"

"Yeah!" And the now fully armed crowd start moving out, but the team leader stopped two groups of people from leaving. For the first group… "You lot go to the coms tower and shut it down. Don't let them contact those kids outside. As for you idiots…" The idiot being the 15 guys who inexplicably fumbled their job. "You cockheads stay here!"

"What? But…"

"There's a whole load of them Magius monsters down there. Kill them lest they get in our way."

"How do we kill them?"

"Certainly not by jerking on them. You got some big gun on your hands, USE THEM!"

"You're never gonna let that go are you? I told you I don't remember what happened!"

"Then stop whining and figure out a way to kill them! You were a soldier, remember how to be one!" And that's the leader's final word before he left the angry group to their task.

"Well, you heard him. Let's go kill some monsters!" the Former Soldier growled.

00000000000000

Meanwhile, out in space, the search so far remained fruitless.

With their speed and the aid of one of Ra's Scarab Drone pods, Valvrave and Carmilla can quickly cover a wide area of search. But they couldn't find a trace of the missing units.

A-Drei's pace was somewhat slower owing to the inferior technology, but he makes it up by being as through as he can be, and the one with better knowledge in search and rescue operations. "Watch the rocks. Seldom does objects in space moved on its own accord. If a small rock is moving to certain direction, it often means something, or someone, bumped into them and made them move."

"But there are so many rocks here…!" Takahi moaned.

"Stop whining and open those holes you call eyes, Ninomiya Takahi." A-Drei grunted. They're talking about a pair of 20 meter tall giant robots being driven by panicking pilots. There's no way something that big driven so brazenly didn't bump into something, no matter how big the space is. 'What's more, Renbokuji Akira is malnourished. She won't be able to go far…'

Meanwhile, Haruto continued his search with less complaints and more determination. As he let loose his Scarab swarms, and as he waited while the drones spread out and search the perimeter, the main unit scanned the surroundings…

Haruto gasped when he found something… for a minute he thought it was the one he was looking for…

…but it's not.

00000000000000

In the Dorssian Starbase…

Kriemhild was managing the army base when she noted the growing mass of people at the horizon. She can hear their screams of anger and yells of murder all the way from here. "Trouble!"

With that one word, the mostly Dorssian Troopers had already assumed their battle stations by the time the armed mob had arrived at their door. Their numbers have grown since their trip to the County, as they are now at least a thousand angry civilians, most of them now armed by weapons confiscated from the Police Station. But the Dorssian Troopers are unlike the feeble Jiorian soldiers. They're used to riots and angry mobs, seeing it happened almost at a daily basis during the early stages of Amadeus' reign where his brutality was first made known. The difference now is, while they knew Amadeus doesn't have qualms to give the order to shoot down the rioters, such barbaric orders are no longer an option.

"DISPERSE!" Kriemhild shouted through the speaker. "DISPERSE OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE!"

As with Ryuuji, her shouts fell on ears deafened by rage and irrational hate. But unlike Ryuuji, Kriemhild will not hesitate to enforce her will when it was clear her warning was not heeded. "TEAR GAS! WATER CANNON! FIRE!"

With that word, the troopers opened fire as trails of tear inducing gas and streams of high pressure water raced ahead of them towards the angry mob just as the front most and angriest of the rioters charged head on. As expected, the tear gas brought them down to their knees and the water cannon pressure pushed the foot soldiers back.

But then, the more heavily armed angry mob began to get smart and they start firing back behind a phalanx of Riot Shield wall. And while the Dorssian trooper had rediscovered their conscience well enough to not add more headcount to their already high civilian killcount, the angry moon colonists before them, many of which were once their victims, intend to pick more than a bone with the troopers. Granted, it's not like the troopers are just gonna walk into the chopping block without a fight.

The troopers and armed rioters began to open fire at each other as they rushed in towards one another. The problem is, one aim to not kill with their rubber bullet ammunition, the other opened fire with live rounds, trying to kill if possible. And the latter outnumber the former 5 to 1.

The former refused to use heavy armor because to use them will be adding to their list of war crimes. The latter got heavy armor and they're not afraid to put it to use. The Panzer starts opening fire with their heavy weaponry. The aim was clumsy enough to miss their intended target by a few meters, but the shockwave of the explosion was enough to send the troopers into slight disarray. But they're learning how to use it, fast.

Kriemhild quickly knew what these people were after, and she knew she couldn't hold them for long. These Moon Colonists are people who were initially deemed unfit to serve as militia, most of them are soldiers of the Moon Colony that refused to bow down. They must've raided the county to gain access to these hardware they're using to storm this base. Their obvious target: a cache of unsecured Kischbaum behind her. "PUSH THEM BACK! DON'T LET THEM GET INSIDE!" She yelled as she too began to shoot back. But she also contacted other units, in particular, the Novus Magius outside. They had to be warned.

But to her horror. Her communicator failed to reach A-Drei's. "What…? Why…?" Kriemhild's question was answered when she saw smoke rising up from what she knew to be the al important coms tower. "Damn, these Moon Soldiers are smart."

00000000000000

Meanwhile, back in the County prison…

Down in her cell Ashra can hear their screams and the sound of their footsteps closing in, and yet she remained calm, as do her other Magius brethren. This isn't the first time they've dealt with an army of rioting masses while they languished behind bars. Granted, time has changed the equipment to something more modern. Where they used to stay inside a prison made of bricks and padlocked bars, now they're sitting inside a bullet proof reinforced glass cells, locked electronically. Same deal, different era and technology.

Before long, the armed Colonists are at their doors, literally. Yet seeing their equipments, the Magius only snickered. Ashra remained in solemn state as they tried to open their cells. Thing is, the electronic lock requires a thumb print. They dragged a bruised and battered Ryuuji and place his thumb on it… but the cell doors remained closed.

"What the hell?" the soldier growled. "How come you can't open this door?"

Ryuuji choked as he could barely hold on to consciousness. "Of course I can't. I'm not in charge here."

"Then who is!?"

"You got an army of aliens who can hijack normal people's body trapped behind cells and you think we'll risk putting normal human to keep them in line?" Ryuuji simply implied the answer. The colonists pick up the answer real quick.

"It's that Haruto kid. Shit."

One of the rioters aimed his rifle at the cell. "I'm gonna blow a hole on that thing!" The Assault rifle fired a barrage, the shotgun blasted away slugs the size of man's fingers. They emptied the whole clip. When the smoke settles the glass wasn't even scratched, and the Magius inside didn't even so much as to flinch. They knew they can survive whatever these fools can throw at them, even if the glass wall could not protect them.

"It's a bullet proof reinforced monomolecular Plexiglas." Ashra explained calmly in her cell. "It can stand against anything short of a point blank cannon fire. You'll need a tank to break us out."

"SHUT UP!" One of the more frustrated soldiers kicked the glass to no avail.

But the group leader remained calm. "Wait… Yeah. I know a way to break this cell wide open."

"Yeah?"

"I got a secret stash of C4 back in my safehouse. It's not far from here. Watch em. I'll go and get it."

00000000000000

Meanwhile, while the damage on the coms tower prevented the riot in the army base to be broadcasted, it's not hard for people inside to notice a battle went on right next their door. Even if the internet is down, word of mouth can still carry the message. And it wasn't long until it reached the source of this chaos.

"They're attacking the Dorssian army base!?" Rion screeched.

"Sssh! Not so loud!" Kibukawa whispered back.

"Sorry!" Rion whispered back. "They're attacking the Dorssian army base?"

"Clearly they're after the weapons inside. They take out the coms tower, preventing them to put the word out to the kids, so that they can ambush them with the element of surprise."

"We have to somehow warn them!"

"Yeah, we should… oh shit." Kibukwa glanced at the mirror and saw another group of armed rioters are right at their door too. The whole hospital is surrounded, no one can enter or exit the building, and the road has been blocked by the mob. Not too long after, armed men entered the room. Rion was the first to protest. "Come on you people! This is a hospital for god's sake!" But the armed rioter pushed her back to Kibukawa's lap. Pretty soon, the entire hospital was taken over and the perimeter was secured with a militaristic efficiency. Whoever organizes this riot… Kibukawa had to admit… he's good.

The armed rioters looked around the wards, searching for something… or someone…

Rion winced when they start trudging to the room she knew belonged to Shoko, but when they opened the curtain…

To everyone's shock, she's no longer where she should be.

00000000000000

Holding the pain on her neck, Shoko and Marie somehow managed to sneak past the armed rioters patrolling the perimeter of the hospital. They can hear the shouts of people questioning her wherebouts up there all the way down here.

"Shoko, how did you managed to convince me to follow you when I should be tying you to bed!?"

"Well, you're the one who said that you'll keep an eye on me no matter what." Shoko showcased her trademark carefree grin, but she's obviously still in pain, given the way she panted. "Can't believe how much mess one small bite can make."

"What's the plan?"

"Get to the main hangar, commandeer something that can fly so that we can warn Haruto and the others."

00000000000000

Meanwhile, the situation is deteriorating fast on Kriemhild's end. Her line of defense is failing and the Rioters are breaking through the barricade. Some are making a break for the machine hangar. Kriemhild desperately opened fire at them. She knew, if even one of those rioters made it inside one of those machines, others will easily follow.

One of her subordinates, desperate to bring these rioters under control even yelled: "Major! Permission to use deadly force!"

"DENIED!" Kriemhild roared. The Dorssia of old would've condoned such act. But the new Dorssia must be better. "Code: Valkyrie!"

"Valkyrie, Major!?"

"You heard me!"

Operation Valkyrie: last resort procedure when the enemies are getting close to a precious cargo, which in this instance, the Kirschbaum. The protocol demanded that the commanding officer ordered the detonation of explosives strapped to main support beams that hold the ceiling atop the precious cargo, burying everything in tons of steel and bricks. Damage to precious cargo is negligible but access will be severely hampered.

The order was given, and executed. With a thunderous roar, the explosive charges on the support beams were detonated and the whole ceiling collapsed right on top of the Kirschbaums.

The battle stopped at the moment of the rioting colonist's triumph where they just broken down the final line of defense of the Dorssian Troopers. They watched in horror of the smoke rising from the hangar, burying the weapons they sought to acquire under tons of steel braces and bricks.

The skirmish ended with the Dorssian's defeat, but they won the war. The Colonists' access to Dorssian deadly mechs had been momentarily cut off.

As the Colonists rounded up the Dorssians and tied them, Kriemhild can hear their discussions…

"What now?"

"We need some heavy equipment to lift up this mess… But how long will this take?"

"Not long. We can get the heavy equipment here. But that'll take like… 30 minutes. But once the equipment are here, we can get rid of this rubble in no time flat."

"Do it. As long as we can keep the communications down and those monster brats knew nothing of what's happening here, we're okay. But I don't know how long this advantage will last."

"Right." And the colonist departed to put the plan in motion.

Meanwhile, a tied Kriemhild was thrown in with the rest of her Dorssian comrades.

"Major… this does not look good at all…" The Trooper gulped.

"It's only over when you say it's over." Kriemhild grumbled. "I just bought us 30 minutes. Now we'll use that time to find a way to communicate with the units outside. I don't care how, find me a line! ANY line!"

00000000000000

Around 30 minutes later, in the county prison, the team leader arrived with a pack of the promised semtex.

"Oh yeah." The colonists danced giddily seeing the explosives laid before them. "Now we can blast them but good! Hahaha!"

The Magius are now somewhat wary of these explosives. Everyone except Ashra… who noticed something about the Team leader…

The team began plastering Ashra's cell with the explosives, but Ashra just keep watching.

"You… You don't know what you're doing!" Ryuuji gasped. "Those walls are not meant to protect them from you. They were meant to protect you from them!"

"Oh shut up!" One of the colonists kicked the Former Prime Minister to silence.

"Once we blow open the cell, pour everything we got and we don't stop until they're reduced to a beehive!" The Colonists stood ready in front Ashra's cell as the team leader silently lined the doors with the explosives. And yet the Magius inside remained as calm as ever.

But the Team Leader is taking his time even while his men are edgily cocking their rifles and weapons, their itchy trigger finger ready to blast. Finally, they grew impatient and asked. "oi, what's taking you so long?"

The Team leader sighed as he got up. "You know… he was right."

"Huh? Who is?"

"Ryuuji-san. He was right." The Team leader eerily chuckled. "They weren't locked to protect them from us. They were locked to protect you from them. It's because you had NO idea what they can do."

"What do you mean we had no idea?"

"Well…" The Team leader chuckled sinisterly. "You were idiotic enough to want to let them loose."

That was when everyone finally notices a can rolled down their feet with a writing made of lipstick: "Have a nice day, suckers."

The flashbang grenade sets off and all hell break loose as the Team leader turned against his own men during the blindness. The first two had their heads banged against one another. Another pushed to kiss the Plexiglas wall, another took a beating to the groin before being slammed down to the floor head first. The next three barely recovered and swing their weapon half blind before the Leader yanked one of the rifles, and swat their heads one by one with it until the weapon breaks and the three men knocked unconscious. The leader threw what's left of the rifle at another who took aim at him with his sidearm. The broken projectile hurled him across the room and knock the gun off his hand, sending it flying to the Leader's hand before he use it to shoot down another 4 on the knee before the bullet ran out. He bashed the next man on the head and throw the now useless gun at another's who had begun to regain his sight. When finally the last one standing regained his sight, all 13 of his comrades are knocked unconscious and the Leader is aiming an assault rifle at his head.

"Oh shit… oh shit… you're one of them!?" The last one caught on quite quick.

"Not exactly." Saki's voice growled from the leader's mouth before she marched forward and knocked the last one unconscious.

And then, once everyone's out for the count, Saki began tying them up, making sure they won't escape. She opened up a cell (coincidentally, it's one sandwiched by two packs of Magius) and put all 14 of them in there. And as for this one, she first took back her unconscious body lying at the corner, put the man's own hand on handcuff, took a gun and he also tied his own leg. Then he can safely bit her real body back to consciousness.

When the Leader woke up, he was hogtied like some wild animal game. Clearly, he was less than pleased. "Holy shit, what…!?"

"Shit happens. That's what." That was the last words he heard from Saki before the girl punched him unconscious.

Once the last rioting colonist is in the bag, Saki tends to an injured Ryuuji. "Are you alright?"

"I… I'm fine. Nice moves by the way. Where did you learn that, Rukino-san?"

"Well, the guy was a former soldier. It's basic self defense skills supped up with a little dosage of superhuman level strength." Saki was referring to the Leader. Of the memories she absorbed when she bit and jacked him.

But then, her pondering was momentarily cut off when she began to hear weird noises from her phone. "?"

"A… any… station… any station… broken through… Dorssian Arsenal… won't be long… Valvrave… must warn…"

Amidst all this static, Saki can barely identify Kriemhild's voice.

00000000000000

Kriemhild's struggled to keep her voice low enough that the sound of the tractor bulldozing through the rubble will mask her attempt to contact anyone who catch this line. The operator managed to cobble together a short wave radio using available spare parts and junks. An almost impossible feat considering they have to do so in under 30 minutes without being seen and while being tied down. But Dorssian tenacity once again made her very proud. Now they can only hope, beyond hope, that someone, not an enemy, will get the message. "Any station on this net. Any station on this net. This is Major Kriemhild of the New Dorssian army. The Rioters had broken through our defenses, and they are currently trying to gain access to Dorssian Arsenal and it won't be long now. If you get this message, please relay them to the Novus Magius. The Valvrave Pilots must be warned!"

As this happened, the heavy machinery had shoveled an entrance, and beneath the rubble, the Kirschbaums remained relatively intact, such was their endurance. "Alright! We got the gear now!" The colonists cheered. And then, more carefully, they began to remove the rubble away to get a better view of the weapons they'll use and clear path for them to take off.

Kriemhild still maintained her calm. Dorssian's hardware are chockfull of countermeasures to deal with unauthorized access. The sheer physical stress on the pilot would be more than enough problem for the unintended drivers. They'll spend a long time to familiarize themselves with the syst-

ROAR!

"Eh?"

Krimhield jawdropped when she saw the first of the Kirschbaums is on the air in less than 5 minutes. Now she's more suspicious than horrified. 'This is no ordinary citizen riot! Coordination of attacks with military precision? Hijacking a high tech military hardware!? Someone's organizing this… and I'm sure as hell it's not militia or civilian!'

She repeated her message again and again with renewed sense of urgency, even after the first Kirschbaum finally soared over her head. "Please… I hope somebody get the message…"

00000000000000

Ironically enough, Kriemhild's prayers were answered, but not by Saki who received snippets of her message, but a pair of girl who, against all odds, managed to finally gain the attention of the Valvrave Squadron as they neared the Valvrave Main Hangar.

Albeit in an unexpected way…

Shoko and Marie were crawling across the bushes to avoid attention when they heard loud rustling. At first they thought it was one of the rioters, what's with the noise grew louder and more intense. At first they thought the patrols are getting to them.

"What should we do, Shoko?" Marie whispered.

Shoko think for half a second and declared: "Let's jump em."

"And what if they gun us on sight?"

"We'll burn the bridge when we get there. CHARGE!" And before Marie can say anything that will allow Shoko to gain some much needed common sense, the overly gutsy girl charged head first…

…straight into the view of Hinomoto Jin and Nao Ota…

…half naked and in a middle of a heating up make out session.

Needless to say, it stopped everyone on their tracks because there are three red lights heating up on their faces.

Five minutes later, both sides had already calmed themselves enough and explained what happened, and the extreme red hue on everyone's faces (bar the ever calm Marie) had been reduced to a much calmer pink.

"So… lemme get this straight." Jin took a deep, deep breath to make sure his face had cooled enough to make sense of Shoko's report. "Your super hacker friend was driven mad by hunger and bit you in the neck. The Moon Colonist went nuts because of the news, seeing they think we're all monsters that would feed on them first chance we get, and they're trying to take over our hard won base by going commando in a kill-em-all-god-sort-em-out frenzy. To top it off, almost all of our Valvraves are indisposed because they went looking for your panicking friend out in the middle of nowhere in space. Did I miss anything?"

"Umm… you forgot the part where they invaded the Dorssian Army base to gain access to their arsenal so that they can destroy the Valvrave facilities." Nao's face is now of lighter color than that of her hair.

"Right. That too." Jin nodded. "So… that leaves us with… what do you want us to do? And I mean not just right now… but… what do you want us… all of us… do with those rioters. I asked this because; while I certainly knew you will not order a shoot on sight… I'm hoping for a plan that didn't involve martyrdom."

Shoko tilted her head down. "They're just… scared… terrified of something they don't understand. In order to quench that fear, we need to make them understand. But if we hurt them, we're just going to make things worse. For all of us." Shoko frowned and she gave the order. "Set up a defensive perimeter on the Main hangar. Defend only. Do NOT engage. Let them tire themselves out! Get the word out to Aina, her Amon Ra can help us there."

"On it, Prime Minister." Nao nodded.

"I thought I said no martyrdom…" Jin's moan nevertheless signified his compliance with that order. "Just… one wrinkle…"

"Yeah?"

"I'm impressed you can get this far on foot, but it's another 45 minutes from here to Valvrave Hangar if you walk… and… my bike there…" Jin jerked his thumb on his mode of transport. "-can only carry two. I can only carry one of you."

Shoko nodded. "Then you and Nao-san go. Warn the main hangar, get the word out and prepare for an imminent attack."

Jin and Nao nodded and get on their bike. Shoko still managed one last scream of: "Remember: DO NOT ENGAGE!" just before the couple bolted off.

Marie took that time to ask: "And you didn't take that motor ride because…?"

"Because Jin-san and Nao-san are combat pilots. Lord knows that hangar will need all the manpower they'll need to mobilize as many Kagerous as possible."

"Giant robots Vs. an army of rioters…" Marie frowned. "No matter how I look at it, that screams collateral damage with a capital C and D." No sooner than Marie had said that, a loud roar of afterburners boomed from their backs. When Shoko and Marie turned to see the source, said source, being the stolen Kirschbaum had just fly over their heads towards the Vavrave hangar with hostile intentions. "Oh no…"

"It's okay. They'll be fine! Our boys are tough!" But no sooner than Shoko said that, they feel a gust of wind blowing behind their back. It looks like one of the Kirschbaum pilot had a keen eye.

"Oh… shoot."

00000000000000

15 minutes earlier, Raizo was still fuming even after the hangar crew timidly brought him out of the brig. When he heard how Satomi stole his 'Thunder', his anger would've exploded in full had Yusuke did not explain that it was all for the sake of rescuing Satomi's panicking sister.

"So… Akira accidentally bit Shoko… but she's okay right, our prime minister that is?" A considerably calmer Raizo nodded, understanding the situation.

"Of course she is. But Akira just hurt her best friend, so you see, she's in shock."

"Right… I get it." Raizo nodded. It was then he noticed four incoming Kirschbaum in the horizon. His fighting instinct suddenly flared up all forms of alarms blaring danger. "Oi… what's up with the Dorssians?"

"Hmmm?" Yusuke also saw the Kirschbaum, they're getting closer and closer. "Could it be… training exercise…?"

"No way." A fighter like Raizo can easily sense hostile intent in the way those Kirschbaum are flying towards them. What's more, he noted the smoke rising from where those mechs came from. It was also then he noticed a biker speeding his motorcycle like a bat out of hell, screaming: "INCOMING!"

It seems the Kirschbaum had noticed the messenger, and immediately opened fire at the bike. Thankfully the shot missed by a quarter mile, but that one shot immediately alerted the Valvrave Base that these Kirschbaum are anything but friendly.

"Oi! They opened fire at them!"

"Could it be the Dorssians betrayed us!?"

"NO!" Jin's scream draw everyone's attention as the biker and his lover plunged in, missing another cannon shot that singed a bit of Nao's hair. Jin jumped away from his out of control bike with Nao in his arms as he let the bike crashed. As soon as he landed he relayed Shoko's message as quickly as he can. "The Moon Colonists are in a frenzy. They attacked the Dorssian StarBase, knocked down the com's tower, and hijacked some of their equipments. They're coming here now to destroy this base and quite possibly us as well." As soon as Jin stated this, the Kirschbaum began to open fire.

"So… what can we do? Obviously we can't just… shoot back…?" Yusuke paled.

"Actually, I had express order from our Prime Minister… we're not allowed to engage. Only defend."

"Naniii!?" Raizo clearly found something is seriously wrong with that order… for a minute. "Well… I kinda understand that… we fought tooth and nail to save these people… to kill them now kinda beat the purpose of the rescue." Another shot landed dangerously close to the hangar now. "Oh well. No time to argue! We have to defend this starbase until Haruto-aniki returns! All pilots sortie!" The pilots quickly ran into the hangar as the pit crew readied the equipment.

The barrage on the Valvrave Starbase intensified. "Alright. Just one more hit!" The four Kirschbaums began charging their chest cannons. And in unison, all four cannons opened fire. A massive explosion erupted when the beams landed, engulfing the entire frontal half of the Starbase. "Yosh. We're halfway there… eh!?"

Behind the smoke, they saw glimmers of light shining. When the smoke was cleared, the source of that glimmer was revealed.

A wall of interconnected pairs of Clear Fossil Shields stood unblemished before the virtually unscathed Valvrave Starbase. 20 Kagerous, all bearing Hiuchiba's old equipment, their twin clear fossil shields stood shoulder to shoulder to form a massive barrier that shield the Starbase. "Come and get us you dumbasses!" Raizo grinned.

00000000000000

Meanwhile, out there in space…

If she didn't remember there's a girl's life at risk, Takahi had already given up a long time ago, though her escorts are getting there. Even with Carmilla's scouting capability and the aid of Amon-Ra's drone swarm, the Valvrave can only cover a small percentage of the area, and space is a big ass space.

"Oh, I'm getting tired of looking at colliding space rocks!" Lily groaned. "We'll never find her like this!"

"If you still have energy to whine, save it for the search!" Takahi was no less pleased with this fruitless search than her friends.

A-Drei's stoicism and pride as a Dorssian Elite kept him on the search. But he also felt the need to check things out back at home. "A-Drei to base, do you read?"

Static answered him.

"A-Drei to base, do you read?" He repeated a tad louder.

Static.

"Hmm?" 'Maybe those idiots broke their com tower or trip a wire…?' He changed the frequency to Dorssian. No way Krimhield would do so such silly mistake. "A-Drei to Major Krimhield!" Static. "A-Drei to Major Krimhild! Anyone!" Static.

And for a moment, A-Drei stopped his search as suspicion grows. "What's going on here?"

00000000000000

Back in the Valvrave Starbase, the phalanx of blue Valvraves guarding hard her gates. The Kirschbaum had opened fire many times until their batteries and the Kagerous' temperatures are getting critical, and yet not once the defending side returned fire nor do they give ground. Insofar, four Kirschbaum is far from enough to penetrate a wall of 20 pairs of interlocked Clear Fossil shields…

Until another 4 reinforce the attacking units, coupled with a few dozen unmanned waffes, some carrying spare batteries for the depleted kirschbaums!

"Seriously…" Raizo growled under pressure of the mounting attacks. "Are we facing rioting citizens or Dorssian assault? Because in all honesty, I'm not seeing the difference!"

But the answer to Raizo's question was answered when something even worse is coming. Beneath the roaring Kirschbaums, a mass of rioting moon colonists are coming towards them. "Oh no… oh no, we can't deal with civilians! Not in these things!" Yusuke gaped. Not only there's a danger of their Kagerous squeeze them flat underfoot, with all these high powered projectiles flying around, it'll be a matter of time until a stray shot took out an entire row of people and then there will be hell to pay. "Can somebody keep them away or something!?"

"Leave that to me."

All the sudden, everyone's vision is filled with a swarm of golden scarabs gleaming under the artificial sunlight. The charging crowd stopped on their tracks, watching the swarm erupting behind the Kagerous wall. The scarabs landed on the ground, right in front of the frontmost rioters. The colonists gulped when they saw a scarab their size eying at them menacinglky, but then, the scarabs converged upon one another, connecting with one another, assembling a wall of near transparent yellow color. And, rising behind her lesser variants were the creator of this wall construct.

"I… I came here to resupply my Scarab drone pods… but can someone please give me a quick explanation of what's going on here?" Aina asked as the Amon Ra rose up from the ruined hangar.

00000000000000

"Please make yourself comfortable, Prime Minister, Ma'am." The young pilot of the Kirschbaum politely gave Shoko a space to sit down.

"Thank you." Shoko nodded.

When they were discovered earlier, Shoko quickly stood her ground before Marie can protest. "I'm the Prime Minister of New Jior. This is just a civilian I chanced upon. If you're going to take somebody, take me. But leave her alone!"

Perhaps moved by her bravery or the young Moon soldier piloting the Kirschbaum are really under orders, the offer was taken. Shoko was picked up, and Marie was left behind, untouched.

Now Shoko comfortably sat next to that pilot who's taking her to the now Colonist occupied Dorssian Starbase. The Pilot glanced at her every now and then, looking at the blood still trickling on her poorly bandaged neck, but mostly marveling her beauty. Eventually Shoko noticed the attention.

"Something on my face?" Shoko smiled cutely.

The Pilot blushed, but he quickly recovered. "No… it's your neck, ma'am. It's bleeding. Quite profusely."

"It'll heal. Just a flesh wound." Shoko shrugged it off. "Where are you taking me?"

"To see my superiors, ma'am. They wish to talk with you."

"Do your superiors stage a riot every time they want to talk… erm…?"

"It's Billy, ma'am." The Pilot nodded. "And begging your pardon ma'am, but… they were desperate. You're constantly under their surveillance and you seem to be firmly on their side. The Magius. We have to take you off their custody."

"Well of course I'm on their side. They're my family and friends." Shoko rolled her eyes. "And I'm not under their surveillance, I'm under their protection. We ALL are. Every one of you."

"But… Ma'am-"

"Shoko. My friends call me Shoko."

The Pilot blushed when being asked to call a girl by her first name right off the bat. "Ms. Shoko. With respect… your friends… they're… they feed on people. One of them nearly tore your neck off!"

"And yet my head is still attached." Shoko grinned and showcased her injuries with pride. "Billy, you have a pet friend? A cat? A dog?"

"A cat."

"Splendid. Now tell me, all those time you befriended your cat, you never get scratched every now and then?"

Billy quickly understood Shoko's point. No friendship is spotless. "Why… why did you defend them so, Ms. Shoko. I mean… I fail to see the reason. It can't be just because they're friends and families."

"In all honesty, I fail to see any other reason why I should NOT defend them." Shoko answered back. "I fail to see why you people fail to see that they can be your friends and family too."

"Ma'am, we understand your optimism, but… they took our families, suck their brains out. I've lost my father to one of those brain sucking machines!"

"Did you see Haruto or anyone in New Jior drained your father dry with your own eyes? Or is that just what your superiors told you to believe?"

Billy was at loss for words at that statement.

00000000000000

Meanwhile, in the Dorssian Starbase…

"This is no ordinary riot." Kriemhild commented as she watched more rioters departed to the direction of the Valvrave Starbase. "Rioters don't have first class military training to allow them to take control of our high grade military hardware so easily. Rioters don't know how to strategically coordinate a takeover with military precision. Think about it. The first they hit was the police station, which they knew to be lightly guarded. Then, once they've acquired some weaponry, they split up: one group to attack the Communication Tower, to cut down all communications so that we can't coordinate our defense, the other group to take over other critical infrastructure, like the Hospital, and the other group went straight at us. Now they're attacking the Valvrave Starbase to either destroy or took over its critical infrastructures for maintaining the Valvraves. That… or…"

0000000

In the Moonbase General hospital, Kibukawa, also a soldier, arrived at a similar conclusion. "Or… if they're smart enough, they're just going to take over the place, wait for the Valvraves to finally return depleted and then either… destroy them or take over em. They knew exactly where and how to hit us hard. That's way too coordinated for an army of frenzied civilians." Kibukawa hummed.

0000000

"That maybe ma'am… but… I'm looking at all these people…" A Dorssian soldier nudged his chin to a rioter as an example. He looked tired and wary, full of openings, he didn't even realize his gun's safety is still on. Not to mention the way they tie their captors up… sheesh… More like a grocer than a soldier. "They sure don't look like trained elites for me…" then again, they could be faking it…

"I'm guessing that most of them are just Moon Colonists goaded into action. Someone is manipulating all this from behind the scenes, sending instigators and other provocateurs to instill this… irrational rage. Like a targeting system guiding a ballistic rocket."

0000000

"…now… the question is… who's the operator of this targeting system? Definitely not one of us?" New Jiorians had seen it all, done it all through the thick and thin, shoulder to shoulder with Novus Magius and Dorssian alike. As far as Kibukawa knows, it is highly unlikely someone in New Jior would betray them. They're too loyal to each other, after all the crap they've been through.

0000000

On the other hand, Kriemhild knew for a fact that all of the surviving Dorssians under her command are loyal to the Emperor and they've had enough with incurring the wrath of these kids and their giant super robots. With Amadeus dead, and their Emperor dissolved their empire, they no longer have any reason to perform any hostile actions that would jeopardize this alliance, not even for a grudge. Not to this extent anyway.

0000000

Magius infiltrators are also a distinct possibility… but it's a slim one. The Moonbase is mainly guarded by an array of Anti Magius countermeasures. Rune Scanner radar probes, Stealth Detectors, Proximity sensors, Motion detectors, and even infra red laser trip mines… not to mention the fact the Valvraves and Kagerous are on constant patrol, scanning all incoming and outcoming traffic. And if all that fails, the main base is scanned at hourly basis by a large scale Rune scanners mounted on its artificial weather dome, and the entire city is dotted with many Rune detectors. The moment it detected anyone to be inhabited by Magius, the Novus Magius will be on them in seconds.

0000000

"Which means…"

Kibukawa and Kriemhild were close to reach a conclusion…

00000000000000

In space… in the middle of nowhere…

Akira curled in a ball inside her stealthed Valvrave. "I bit shoko-chan! I bit Shoko-chan! I bit Shoko-chan!" Her mind and lips chanted the same four words over and over in a crazed feverish pitch, as she frantically clawed her hair. She can still taste the tinge of Shoko's blood in her tongue. It frightens her that instead of feeling disgusted to her core, something in her chest are clawing her heart out, demanding more. "NO! NO! NO! NO!" She screeched again and again. How could she do that? Her first and only friend in the world and she almost tore her neck off? How can she face her now!? 'Shoko must be terrified of me now…' In her mind, she imagined Shoko's face twisted to that of hate. It was unbearably painful to look at. 'Enough already…' She cried to her knees. 'I'm tired of hurting… Tired of being hurt…! Life is just too painful… Perhaps… perhaps it's best… if I had never existed at all…' Unable to cope any longer, the broken Renbokuji Akira finally shut down, both in body and mind.

As if complying with the pilot's wish of inexistence, the Malefic literally melted into the darkness. Completely invisible and unperceivable in every way…

Unfortunately, just as the last traces of the Malefic fade completely into invisibility, the Behemoth chose that time to finally arrive. Satomi desperately looked around the darkness of space and see nothing, blissfully unaware that her mentally shattered sister is not even 6 feet away from him.

"Akira…!" Wearied by fear and panic, Satomi had grown desperate enough, he deliriously yelled in his cockpit with a broken voice resulting from a dry throat, hoping, beyond hope, that his words will be carried through the dark void of space into her sister's ears. "Akira…! Where… are… you…!" His drones still tirelessly looked around, searching for the tiniest trace of the wayward Malefic… but alas, the cameras and sensors cannot perceive her even when she's right in front of their optics. In a tragic coincidence, not one of the drones did so much as to even touch or scratch her, not even by accident.

Seeing another seemingly empty result, the Behemoth began to drift away from the Malefic, and finally, completely unaware of each other's existence, the two siblings left each other alone…

00000000000000

Meanwhile, at the Valvrave Starbase…

"I see… I… pretty much get the gist of it…" Aina nodded. "So… Shoko wants us to just defend, but do not engage, no matter what, yes?" The Amon Ra's scarab shield drone significantly increases the endurance of their defensive line.

"That's the idea." Raizo grunted.

"But I'm not exactly keen on the idea of just standing still and wait here until our asses get whooped." Jin is still hoping for a no martyrdom idea…

"…hmm… I may have an idea…" Aina decided to test the Swarm fleet's unintended offensive capability. She batted her hands forward, and following her instructions, the swarm buzzed towards a Kirschbaum. Sensing something amiss, the Kirschbaum desperately fired upon the incoming swarm to no avail. Before long, his screen was overloaded by the swarm. Outwardly, the Kirschbaum was covered head to toe in a swarm of scarabs. The scarabs plugged every opening on the Kirschbaum: every cannon barrel, exhaust vent, even its rocket boosters. The already heavy mech had its weight amplified tenfold, its frame cracked under sheer pressure of its own weight, its generators overheated and reached meltdown in seconds. The console exploded here and there on the pilot's face before it free fall to the ground with a crashing finality. Aina also used the swarm to redirect the fall so as to avoid the civilians. When the swarm left the Kirschbaum, the fuselage has been bent out of shape. Its functional… but it won't see combat any time soon.

"Shoko said do not engage…" Aina smiled naughtily in a way that is somewhat similar with Inuzuka when the young business man found a loophole in a contract. "Didn't say anything about disabling…"

"Who are you and what have you done to our timid and cute Sakurai Aina?" Yusuke was surprised by this unexpected cunningness, but not unpleasantly so.

Aina was also quite surprised that she, of all people, can come up with this surprisingly aggressive idea. Perhaps all those time Inuzuka spent in her body had affected her a bit. "Go get them!" And with that, Aina set the fleet upon other Kirschbaums, who quickly retreated in a newfound fear of the golden swarm.

Seeing they're gaining ground via this loophole, Raizo was more than happy to leap into action. "American Football team! Huddle!"

Five Hiuchiba Kagerou gathered around Raizo's. "We charge in! Body slam them to the ground! Ready? Hut!~ Hut! Hut!" And six Kagerous charged forward en-masse in a massive shoulder bulrush towards a caught off guard Kirschbaum. Two grabbed its chest and dragged him down from the sky before locking it down to the ground, face down, with their weight, two shoulder-tackled the legs, the other two did the same to its arms. When the Kagerous stood back up, the limbless Kirschbaum struggled helplessly trying to get up.

"Two down, six to go!"

00000000000000

Meanwhile, back in the hospital…

"STOP IT YOU BRUTES! There is a sick and injured person in there!" Rion is struggling to bar the way of one of the armed militia who was trashing the place. Said Militia was getting close to a certain room, sealed behind a thick airtight door.

"Who's in there!?"

"None of your damn business!" Rion growled.

"Out of the way woman!" The armed colonist roughly bashed the nurse aside with the butt of his rifle. With Rion out of the way, the Militia peeked through the door.

Inside, was Inuzuka Kyuuma, still in comatose state, recovering inside a Mirror Rave engine that serves as a hyperbaric chamber filled with condensed runes to accelerate his recovery. He's much improved since his time in the Module, but many of his injuries are still quite visually severe: what's with one can still see through the hole on his stomach and his legs barely intact. They were severe enough damage, that common assumption wouldn't think a normal human can survive such injuries. And yet, one can see the boy is breathing, with his chest pumping up and down in his unconsciousness.

Little wonder then that the Militia quickly assumed: "Is that one of those Magius Monsters in there?"

"Don't touch him!" Rion roared as she rose up to push away the Militia, but that only earned her another throwdown.

"How could you!" The Militia growled. "How could you! You're a human, and yet you side… with THEM!?" The Militia spat at Inuzuka's room.

"I'm a doctor." Rion rebuked bravely, though she was close to crying as well. "I side with the sick and injured. No matter who or what they are!"

"Traitor!" The militia slapped the deviant nurse to the ground. Kibukawa gritted his teeth and wanted to teach that punk a lesson, but he was tied to his chair. Meanwhile, the militia quickly called his friends. "Hey guys! There's one of those monsters here!"

"Really!?" "Where!?" "Let me at em!-!" the militias lined up in front of the room. When they peek through the slit, they also came to the same conclusion with the first militia. "Let's waste him!" One of them turned to Kibukawa. "Open it!"

"It's DNA locked you asshole." After what they've done to Rion, Kibukawa had dispensed with the politeness. "And it ain't my DNA."

Angered, the colonists resort to open the door in the hard way. They start by banging the door, trying to damage it somehow. They opened fired at it, and it only result in scratches. One of them grabbed an iron bar to use as a winch and attempted to pry it open. With some effort, they've succeeded to open a small crack…

But the moment the sealed room detected an authorized breach, the alarm allover hospital roared PROXIMITY ALERT! multiple times to anyone who cares. An automatic response system was triggered, and a system message was sent to the person whose DNA would've opened that door safely…

00000000000000

Aina had just overloaded her 3rd Kirschbaum when her console lit up red, and various warning symbols alerted her of a critical issue.

WARNING: PROXIMITY ALERT. UNAUTHORIZED PREMATURE BREACH DETECTED. ACTIVATE PROTOCOL OSIRIS. Y/N?

Aina's heart stopped beating for a minute when she realized what it meant. "…Inuzuka-san!" Someone in the hospital had tried to forcibly open up Inuzuka's recovery pod prematurely. Given the circumstances, she can only assume whoever did it, did so with hostile intention. She needs to get to the hospital ASAP, but there are still a few more Kirschbaum and the situation is hardly ideal for her to just leave.

She wanted to press Y, but she hesitated, remembering Pino's warning about it when she explained it to her.

0000000000000000000000000000

A month ago, before the battle for the Moon…

"As we all know, inside the core of the Amon Ra's Rave Engine is Inuzuka-kun's still recovering human body. And while the process is slow, his wounds are healing. Ideally, it would be best to wait for… say… give or take a month or two, and Inuzuka's body would've recovered enough for him to survive his transformation into a Novus Magius. After which, ample of Runes and a Novus Magius' latent regeneration capability will ensure that when we plug him out, he's fully healed."

Inuzuka Aina and Sakurai Aina looked on hopefully at Inuzuka's ruined body inside the Rave Engine.

"However, you two are heading into a fierce battle." Pino cautioned the couple. "And a lot can happen in a battlefield. Worst case scenario, Amon Ra can take enough damage that the Rave Engine suffered a serious breach. That's where Protocol Osiris came in."

"But it's a last, as in, absolutely last, resort. We get it." Inuzuka nodded, having fully read the specs.

"No. No, it's not that simple." Pino sternly shook her head. "System Osiris requires a fully awakened Novus Magius to use. Which means when this protocol is activated, the system will forcibly turn you into a Novus Magius, whether you're healed enough or not. The process might kill you at worst. And even if you do survive the transformation, there's no guarantee that it will be flawless."

"We understand."

"Do you?" Pino seem sterner than usual in this matter. "Because whatever came out of this gamble, you will have to live with it for the rest of your eternity. Are you prepared for that?"

0000000000000000000000000000

Aina's fingers hovered over the choice of Y or N… this is the second time in her life she must decide Inuzuka's fate. If she go with it, she'll be taking a risk that Inuzuka will come out of this ordeal flawed. But if she didn't do it, he'll die anyway.

Aina closed her eyes and the world around her to find the answer and the resolve. In the end, she came up with the answer, and pressed it.

AUTHORIZATION CONFIRMED. LAUNCHING SYSTEM OSIRIS.

Horus, Sekhmet, and Anubis. Those are the three out of four pairs of sarcophagus adorning Amon Ra's waist.

And now, the last pair of Sarcophagi, the Osiris, detached from its spot as parts of them opened up, revealing rocket boosters that lit up and shot the two Sarcophagi speeding to the sky.

Fortunately, the besieging Kirschbaums thought it as missiles and opted to move away to dodge it rather than shoot it down. The two Sarcophagi zoomed away to its destination undisturbed.

00000000000000

At the hospital, the frenzied colonists gave one mighty yank, and they finally managed to pry the sealed door wide open. But before they can even celebrate, the two giant Sarcophagi crash landed right on top of Inuzuka's Recovery Pod, momentarily shielding it from further attacks.

PROTOCOL OSIRIS ACTIVATED. BEGINNING EMERGENCY SUBJECT RESUSCITATION.

The two sarcophagi opened up and mechanical appendages entered the pods, sending pulse of energy. Inuzuka's body jerked multiple times inside the pod. And finally, with one final jerk, Inuzuka's eyes sprang open as he screamed wide awake inside his pod. For a moment, it looked like the boy was having a hard time remembering how to breathe. But the machines didn't gave him the time to do so. With cold efficiency, the two sarcophagi opened up, and within seconds, the Rave engine was torn apart while pieces of machinery from the two coffins attached themselves on the dismantled engine, reconstructing the engine into something else. The two Sarcophagi also break open and dismantled themselves, integrating to this form. It soon became apparent the two Sarcophagi are constructing something humanoid with a writhing Inuzuka as the core. The Osiris Sarcophagi upper halves break apart into shoulder armors and a pair of arms. Their blue plates detached and plates of yellow clear fossil alloy wrapped around the chest frame in an overlapping armor, forming the shape of humanoid torso and waist. The lower half of the sarcophagi extended down and formed heavily armored legs and side waists. When Inuzuka finally regained awareness of what's happening, he was already clad in a massive oversized armor that greatly resembles a Valvrave Hiuchiba's original form with its a pair of shoulder mounted giant shields, but it was significantly smaller, more humanoid, and lean. It still made the wearer stand at least thrice larger than a full grown man.

BEGINNING SUBJECT TRANSFORMATION.

Unlike the Valvrave, Inuzuka doesn't have a say, the injector pierced his neck straight away, and the boy screamed in sheer agony as the transformation coruscated across his veins. It was thankfully brief, but the agony sent Inuzuka falling on his armored knees and continued until he knelt on all fours.

The Colonists jaws had yet to recover from their drop when Inuzuka finally regained his senses, and his original body back, at long last. "The Osiris…" Still on all fours, a panting Inuzuka Kyuuma stared at the mechanical fingers that flexed to his will in recognition. "Never thought this day would come. But if I'm wearing this… and I'm alive… then that means…" a smile found its way to newly born Novus Magius' lips. "I've won the gamble… and my girl's in trouble." Inuzuka's smile immediately turned into a frown and a angry growl at the colonists. He saw their weapons, saw Kibukawa and an unconscious Rion in his lap, with a bruise on her face. "You asswipes better not be the cause of that trouble."

"Actually…" Kibukawa recognized a chance of payback when he sees one. "They are, in many ways, the trouble."

And that was all the information Inuzuka needs to get violent real quick. A helmet slide out from the collars and protected Inuzuka's face just as the Colonist regained their senses and start opening fire. The helmet is a full face mask, with a sense nerve crown not unlike those found on Valvraves on its visage. The Sense Nerve lit up neon green just as the robotic suit went fully online.

"Say hello to world's smallest Valvrave, creep!" The first person was sent flying across the room when Kyuuma punched them in the chest. The next two was swatted to the next room via express trip through the brick wall. The last one tried to run, but the Osiris massive reach grabbed him by the back and dragged him screaming to Kyuuma's face. "Now. Talk. What's going on here!?"

A quick and dirty explanation later…

"Okay." And Inuzuka headbutted the last rebel colonist to unconsciousness from a bleeding broken nose now that he had heard all he needed to hear after 'interrogating' every single Colonist militia that occupied the hospital, as well as asking questions to the people he rescued along the way.

With the newly activated Osiris, Inuzuka easily unbound Kibukawa and Rion. "One small bite and all this happen?"

"No. There's more to it, Inuzuka-kun." Kibukawa still has his suspicion of the wire puller behind the scene of this chaos. "Someone is stoking the fire. But for now, I think it is best you go help Aina-san secure the Moonbase. Hurry now, I think Sakurai-chan and the others couldn't hold on much longer."

"Yeah. I'll do that…" Inuzuka nodded. "But… Kibukawa-sana, did you wait until I beat the crap out of every single one of them Colonist to tell me that Shoko-chan had ordered us NOT to hurt them?"

"Saa-na?" And still the doctor plays the innocent.

"Right." Inuzuka groaned as the helmet close in on him again. "If Shoko and all my victims sue me, I swear to God, I'll drag you down with me." The thrusters beneath the shoulder shields and the legs roared as the Osiris began to take off and eventually flew towards its destination in a blur.

00000000000000

Satomi kept searching and searching, so focused he was in searching for his sister, the poor boy is running by force of will alone rather than stamina for a quite a while. He failed to realized… he just landed on the crosshairs of an unsavory party…

"It's a Valvrave sir… it looks damaged." What's with the mecha only have one arm and all…

"Hmmm… any word on our men inside the Moonbase?"

"Not yet."

"Well… damaged or not, a valvrave is still a valvrave. Secure it or destroy it."

That order sent a ripple of activity across a massive ARUS warship that, until a moment ago, was hidden from view by virtue of its stealth generator. It has been there for many weeks now, observing, waiting. And now, the decided to break cover, knowing they'll never get a chance like this again.

A delirious Satomi had yet to realize what's happening… not until the whole warship finally appeared out of thin air right in front of him and his sensors register an energy build up on its weapons. "What the-"

Before he can react, the warship's cannons opened fire…

'AKIRA!'

00000000000000

Meanwhile, in the Valvrave Starbase, the remaining two Kirschbaum are hardly the issue anymore, but the civilians are. Seeing the Kirschbaum falling one by one further galvanized them into more reckless actions. They began desperately bashed their bodies against the scarab wall, throw rocks, bricks, unloading bullets and Molotov cocktails, some even began vainly clawing the indestructible clear fossil wall until their finger nails snapped.

The Kagerou pilots are at lost. They can't exactly stop the colonists from hurting themselves when they're inside gigantic 20 meter tall robots without inflicting some unwanted casualties… but if they get off these robots, the frenzied civilians will tore them to bits!

As the pilots pondered their bleak choices, a loud booming sound echoed, hurting the people's ears, sending them screaming in pain and panic.

Descending and decelerating from his mach three speed flight, the Osiris landed with a loud thud between the scampering civilians and the scarab wall. "Alright people!" Inuzuka's voice echoed from built in speaker on his helmet. "Disperse now."

Aina cried in happiness when she heard that voice. "INUZUKA SENPAI!" He's in Osiris… and his vitals are strong! He won the gamble!

"Aina… write an I.O.U. and send it on my tab. I owe you for an eternity." And Inuzuka will happily wile away his eternity to repay that. The Osiris turned back to the shocked masses. "Deal with the Kirschbaums, I'll take care of these guys…" This is what they designed the Osiris for. Valvraves and Kagerous are too big. Osiris maintains the firepower of his larger counterparts while downgrading its scale to anti-infantry level. And naturally, it is also equipped with non lethal response.

"DISPERSE!" Inuzuka roared. "Seriously. Disperse!" And to make his point, the Osiris brought out its entire arsenal.Arm mounted dual link auto cannons (rubber bullets), shoulder shield mounted precision laser cutter (low intensity, scratch skin), upper shoulder mounted smart munitions launcher (50,000 volt taser rounds), leg mounted grenade launcher (Tear gas)… as well as a whole slew of missile launchers lining up his chest, waist, and back(That abominable Sarin Gas warheads)."Put aside your torches and pitchforks people, this isn't the middle ages anymore! We can talk this out like civilized men we are."

Seeing all these arsenal lining up a giant robot (well, giant by their standards, not by the Valvrave's) and for a moment the colonists are starting to have second thoughts…

Until another fleet of half a dozen Kirschbaum, supported by a lot of Arus Splicers arrived behind them… and an Arus Destroyer.

But that's not the issue.

The issue, is what one of the Kirschbaums was holding in its hand.

00000000000000

Takahi's sensors detected a high energy reading she recognized as weapon discharge from behemoth's plasma casters. "A-drei? A-Drei do you read that? A-Drei?" The Dorssian soldier didn't reply. "Tokishima-kun!? Tokishima-kun!?" No answer as well. "What is this? Where is everybody?" Takahi switched the communication to contact the Moonbase, but she also received no response.

"What now, Ninomiya-sama?" Eri asked her mistress.

"…" Takahi frowned. "Let's get to Satomi first. Then… we'll see what to do from there."

00000000000000

A little earlier when Billy finally brought Shoko to the Dorssian Starbase, he found the base is in a state of complete turmoil. It seems, the Valvrave pilots can put down pretty much everything they throw at it. In fact, he even heard that they achieved that without killing anyone. Somehow, that made his superiors very nervous.

When Billy brought Shoko to his superiors they didn't even bother to listen or to even meet her. They just told him to bring her with him on the next final assault, because they have a 'plan'. And that's it.

And it wasn't until they finally arrived at the gates of the Valvrave Starbase that the details of the plan were made clear to him. And personally, he does not like it. Not. One. Bit.

"I'm… terribly sorry about this… ma'am." The young soldier was gracious enough to politely apologize for this rough treatment. Being grasped by a giant mechanical arm is hardly a pain free experience. He was even more mortified when Shoko still find it in her to thank him for his show of hospitality and kindness, however brief that maybe. When the mechanical hand grasped her frail body, Billy tried his best to make it as gently as possible. He did not succeed and he knew she's hurt… but she didn't let loose so much as a whimper. It was amazing.

Even as the wind blows against her hair, Shoko calmly looked up to the sky. The Arus Detsroyer, its latest model. That explains it then. It was them all along. Directing the civilians, inciting them up. She looked down at the angry and terrified masses beneath her. Forget upset, she only felt pity for them. They don't know anything, they weren't given time to understand, and now they're being used as human shield… and they didn't even realized it. She looked at the corner, and she noticed a camera flash…

It was Burnett. Judging by the bruises he and his crew had on their faces, the Arus agents must've captured him. They want this televised. They want to show the world that the Magius, Novus or otherwise, are as brutal as they say.

00000000000000

It was with mixed feelings that Burnett pressed the live button on his camera to record this horrid scene and broadcast them for the whole world to see. For one thing, having grew fond of these children, be they human or Magius, he would loathe any attempt to demonize them as monsters. And yet, a part of him was also hoping something like this happen. Not only because events such as these are chances to prove the world how wrong they are, but also because he knew, with growing confidence, that somehow, these children will carry the day. "Don't disappoint me, Shashinami Shoko." And he starts shooting.

00000000000000

In the County Prison…

"I got reception…" Ryuuji opened up his palmtop. "ARUS frequency…" He rolled his eyes. "A video feed."

Saki frowned. Their com is down, but ARUS frequency can still get in? "Well at least we now knew who's behind today's mess!"

"Jeffrey." Ryuuji shook his head. This sort of riot incitement is indeed something that old fox would come up with. He swiped his palmtop and put the video feed on the screen. Ryuuji's heart skipped a beat when he saw his daughter's predicament.

00000000000000

The Valvraves and the Kagerous stopped fighting when they recognized their Prime Minister. And as expected, they were very, VERY unhappy.

"You cowards!" Raizo roared.

"I take it the situation had been made very clear to you." A voice echoed from the Destroyer's loud speaker. "Surrender this facility and disembark from your units! You have 10 seconds to comply!"

"Like hell we will!" Raizo growled. While Raizo was the one who voiced his opinion out loud, his sentiment was nevertheless shared by all Valvrave and Kagerou pilots. They've endured this kind of scenario before, thanks to Dorssian cowardice. They know well enough what their brave Prime Minister would expect out of them.

Unfortunately, the Captain of the Destroyer quickly retranslates their stoicism as apathy. "See? They don't care about humans. They're all just monsters, thirsting to shed blood and destruction wherever they go! Are you willing to entrust your safety to such abominations?"

The mob bought such words and looked at the Titans before them with increasing distrust. Once again, galvanized by this false propaganda, they began marching forward. This time, Kyuuma knew mere sight of his weapons will no longer be enough. But if it's like this… he'll have to open fire… but… that will be self fulfilling prophecy. Aina knew if any one of the Kagerous opened fire, they'll be playing right into the opposition's hands… but if they don't defend themselves, the civilians will tear them apart with their bare hands, or worse, the civilians may hurt or kill themselves to the task. Yusuke fingers trembled. In a way, an army of angry civilians is even scarier than a fleet of battleships. And Raizo may be a bully, but he'll be damned before he picked on somebody NOT his size.

And in the end, as expected, it was Shoko who maintained her calm with ease. She's a much more mature leader than she was some time ago when she can still crack to a certain point. Shoko began to struggle within the Kisrchbaum's grasp.

"Ms. Shoko, what are you doing?" Billy eased up the fingers a little to allow the girl to do what she want. And it turns out, all she wanted was to stand up on her two feet at the palm of his hand.

She stood tall and calm against the blowing wind, eyes clear of any doubt and fear. Burnett just knew he had to shoot this even if it kills him.

Billy gasped for breath seeing the magnificence of her dignity shine through. He couldn't even hear his superiors barking angrily on his ears, asking what the hell he is doing.

Shoko looked down upon the Valvraves from above. "ATTEN SHUN!" She roared loud enough that everyone stopped moving.

The New Jior pilots stand in attention.

"REPEAT MY LAST ORDER!?"

Jin started. "TO DEFEND!"

"BUT DO NOT ENGAGE!" …and Raizo felt inclined to finish it.

"You do understand what that means… yes?" Shoko smirked to Aina and Kyuuma.

"Yes." They echoed. To defend… is not the same as to stand down. To do not engage… is not the same as to do nothing. "We understand."

Shoko smiled. "Then I've said all I needed to say." She sat down. "Carry on."

And as one, every single New Jior pilot stood ready, saluted and wholeheartedly roared:

"YES, MA'AM!"

Burnett swore he can die happy right now having caught all this in his camera for the whole world to see. ARUS wanted to prove to the world that the Novus Magius are monsters. Instead, in one fell swoop of calculated mischief, one girl tore it all apart. She just showed not just to the Moon Colonist but to the whole world where does the Novus Magius' loyalty truly lie. Their unified voice was like the sound of a thunder strike. Brief but powerful and their echoes reverberated forever in everyone's memory. Their one shout signify their complete and unquestioning loyalty to the one girl who can command these titans. Their leader, the one and only: Shashinami Shoko.

The firm roar of the New Jior pilots send everyone back a step in shock and awe. The Colonists who were so angry before are now awash with doubt. "D… Did you see that?"

"She gave them an order… and they obeyed her, just like that?"

"B… But what about that biting thing…"

"Must be a mistake. Didn't you see the way these guys obeyed her without question? What sane person would dare to lay a hand on a girl who can command an army like that!?"

Soon, the Colonists began to argue amongst themselves, having second thoughts about the whole ordeal.

00000000000000

In the County Prison…

Ryuuji's proud grin was so wide; it threatened to tear his face in two.

The imprisoned Magius, who had glued their eyes to this video since it began, also bulged eyes in bewilderment and, dare they say it, awe. Ashra rolled her eyes. Now she's starting to understand why Pino held humans in such a high esteem.

"The idiots never learned do they?" Saki chuckled. "To challenge our Prime Minister's popularity is a hell lot harder than taking over the world."

00000000000000

Inside the Arus Destroyer, the captain's jaw hadn't gone up yet as he stare in utter disbelief of how a girl completely undo everything in one fell swoop. And while he's still wondering what to do, a window screen appeared revealing a less than pleased Jeffrey Anderson, the President of ARUS. And obviously he was less than pleased. "What is the meaning of this?" And he wasted no time voicing his displeasure.

"Sir… I…" The captain has no answer.

"I sent you to demonize them!" Jeffrey growled. "And instead, you showed me THAT!?"

"Sir, just give me a chance. I… I can fix this." The Captain stuttered in fear. "I… I'll see to it personally."

"See that you do." Jeffrey glared murderously. "This is your last chance, captain."

When the screen was closed, the Captain looked like he got 10 years of his life drained of him. A moment later, he made his way to the gunnery room. "Gunners at ready! Prepare the Rail Cannons."

"Yes sir. Rail cannons standing by." The gunner chief began the activation sequence for the rail cannons. Outside, the Destroyer's underbelly opened up and a multitude of precision cannons descended down.

"Aim all cannons -15 degrees downward."

"Aiming -15 degrees…" The Gunner Chief trailed off to a shocked horror when he realized what he was aiming for. Yes, he's aiming at the Valvraves, but at this angle… "S…Sir?"

BANG! The console was sprayed with blood when the captain shot the gunner dead. And then, without pausing, the Captain went on a killing spree and killed every other horrified gunner. "Note for Log: A crew in the gunnery section was jacked by a Magius. Said Magius killed the crew and initiate bombardment… now." And with that, the Captain pressed the speaker and get his finger on the trigger.

Burnett was still having a time of his life shooting Shoko's heroic pose… which include her innocently waving to the camera. When his camera finally caught electricity coursing through the array of artillery lining up the Destroyer's underside, that was when Burnett realized what will happen next. "Oh God."

It started with a loud scream of the Captain fro the Destroyer's speaker: "DIE HUMAN SCUMS!"

And four things happened all at once.

Billy pulled Shoko back in as his Kisrchbaum ducked down…

The Kagerous, Amon Ra and Osiris rushed towards the civilians, shields up to protect them…

The Colonists screamed in horror, confused and terrified when machine giants suddenly charged towards them in what looked like a massed bulrush…

And finally: The Destroyer's array of Underside Precision Rail Guns fired a barrage towards the Valvrave units, with the civilians caught in its trajectory.

00000000000000

Ryuuji screamed in horror. "NO!" It was at that exact moment the video feed was cut off. Ryuuji banged the screen, demanding to know the fate of his beloved daughter.

"They… I can't believe this… they… they're insane… they… how could they went so far…" Saki closed her mouth in utter disgust.

Even Ashra cringed at this atrocity.

00000000000000

What happened next, Burnett could not catch, for the subsequent blinding explosion engulfed everything. But when he opened his eyes again, he knew he's awoken to the scene of hell. Sea of fire, shattered earth, charred artificial skies clouded in smoke, blood soiled the ground as screams of woe and pain echoed in the distance. A quick observation of the clock and Burnett noticed there's a gap between the time when he was knocked out of his conscious and the time he regained them. His camera-woman was droned in her own blood when a pillar crushed her upper half, along with her camera. Lord knows what happened to his other crew?

When Billy opened his eyes again, his whole body burns with pain. His consoles burning. He kicked it several times, securing an exit as the hatch was smashed open. But he didn't care about his own injuries. "Ms. Shoko? Ms. Shoko!?" He crawled out of the ruined cockpit and unto the landscape of destruction and carnage. Searching frantically around the ruins of his Kirschbaum, he found her beneath the ruins. She's injured… but she's very much alive. "Ms. Shoko! Ms. Shoko?"

"Ha… Haruto…" Shoko muttered in delirium.

Billy had no idea who this Haruto is, but he better make sure Shoko survive so that she can see him again, if he's still alive.

"Haruto…" Shoko repeated. "Haruto…"

00000000000000

In deep space…

"Wh… Why… are you doing this to me?" Haruto's eyes could barely see through the blood gushing through his forehead.

"Because I want you to watch." The other person also panted in exhaustion. "Just this once, I want you not to interfere. Not this time."

"Why!?"

"You're the first of your kind. You are special in that others looked up to you for guidance. And as far as I know, you provide them the moral signpost to define what is best for them. But what happens when you're not there to guide them? That is what I want you to see."

"If that's the case, then things don't go exactly as planned, right?" Haruto smirked. "Shoko lead the Novus Magius. Not me."

"I think you're underestimating your own worth quite a bit." The man chuckled. "and while Shashinami Shoko was indeed able, I consider her a steward. A caretaker to the throne. She's mortal. She cannot keep doing this forever. She has chosen mortality, if I'm not mistaken. When she passed away, and she will, the task will fall to you."

"W… What the hell do you want from me?"

"You and your brethren are Pino's masterpiece. You are her legacy for a future she envisioned for us. And by us, I mean all of us, human Magius alike. I want to see a glimpse. Just a glimpse of it. And to do that I need to know if you can carry on to that future. I want to see what you'll do."

"I want to save my friends! So why did you get in my way!?" Haruto roared.

Haruto had seen the carnage ensuing inside the Moonbase. He would've departed the minute he saw Shoko in the hand of a giant robot… if his Valvrave wasn't punctured by his own Blackrose in one hand, and a giant robotic glaive on the other… and the many hardlight crystals that punctured the many part of his damaged primate engine. The end result of a deathmatch he just lost.

Then again, as one would say: One should look at the other guy.

"Still… I must say I'm impressed." The man laughed over the sound of his console blaring critical damage on over 60% of his heavily damaged mech. "It's been a while since someone managed to throw me around like this to the point I saw my own blood." The man looked at the blood staining his hand. "I'm terribly sorry about nailing you to the Asteroid like this. I don't want to be too rough, but you were… shrinking my options."

"Let… me… GO!" Haruto was so furious, his eyes briefly turned red and his Magius markings briefly lit up.

"I will." The man smiled. "Just not yet."

"What?"

"Timing. Tokishima Haruto. The timing is everything. I will let you go when the time comes. I need you to arrive at a critical point. A point that will decide… everything."

00000000000000

The rail guns on the Arus Destroyer's underside were still smoking as it looms of the scene of slaughter it caused beneath it. The rails gun barraged the ground with solid tungsten shells ammunition fired at 4 times the speed of sound, each round hit the ground with enough force to take out an entire city block. And yet… there were survivors beneath the ruins.

It was fortunate that all the Kagerous are in its Hiuchiba configurations with its vastly increased defensive capability. And yet, even with that, there are still casualties. Of the 20 Kagerous that stood their ground, 3 were completely destroyed for being unable to lift up their defenses in time. 6 stood their ground to defend the civilians and paid for it dearly, torn apart when their shield can't handle direct hit from the heavy physical projectiles. The remaining 11 barely survived in part because the Amon Ra's shield scarab swarm managed to erect a barrier thick enough to soften the blow for them, but it was barely enough, and out of those 11, 7 were severely damaged, online but they're clearly out for the count. Only 4 could barely maintain its functionality.

Raizo, one of the 7, barely cling on to live. Thanks to his Novus Magius healing factor, he managed to survive even though he's an arm short and half of his body was singed. Yusuke lay unconscious on his cockpit. His Kagerou is one of the 4, but the blast knocked him out when his face was banged to the monitor due to the shock.

"NAO!" Jin's unit happened to be one of the last 4… Nao's unit… was with the first group of 6. "NAO!" Jin's Kagerou desperately trekked towards what he knew to be his girlfriend Kagerou. One of the shrapnel tore right into what he knew to be the cockpit area. "Nao…!"

The Valvrave survived, but Amon Ra was on its knees, overheated at an excess 257/100 when its absolute defense system was taxed beyond capacity. Blood trickled from Aina's nostrils when the girl felt the mental backlash of her swarm being torn apart straight into her brain synapses. The Osiris smashed open a pile of rubble, allowing the colonist he had protected with his body to climb out. The Valvrave armor is cracked from bottom to top, but it remained relatively intact.

But the result of their sacrifice was evident. Many of the Colonists survived, for they were standing in the shadows of the titans who protected them. They crawled and scampered, too terrified for hate and too broken willed to feel the anger that once drove them.

00000000000000

Even though Burnett's video feed was cut off midway, Saki doesn't need to see its continuation to know that her friends are in need of help. Immediately. Saki looked like she was ready to rush out straight to the Valvrave Starbase on foot if she must, but Ryuuji clearly disapprove.

"You mustn't, Rukino-san!" Ryuuji held the girl back. "There's nothing you can do at this point!"

"Nothing!?" Saki spat. "Your daughter is right in the middle of that slaughterhouse! And my husband could be on his way back here even as we speak, and when he gets here unprepared and unaware, lord knows what those assholes will do. I'm not gonna sit here and wait to find out!"

"He's right you know." Ashra spoke out in her cell, drawing Saki and Ryuuji's attention to her. "Pardon me… I'm looking at you… I sensed your rune. You're a Novus Magius… but… I also felt your rune was… mingled with another's rune… might you be… Tokishima Haruto's wife?"

Saki rolled her eyes hearing a Magius addressed her husband by name. Insofar, of the multitudes of Magius they've encountered, Haruto did say he expressed interest on one he called by name. She still remembered her name and her characteristics as described by Haruto. "And I'm guessing you're Ashra?"

"At your service." Ashra courteously nodded. "Know this. Your husband is indeed in grave danger, but even if you can get there, there's nothing you can do."

"Nobody asked your opinion!"

"If you truly care for your husband, heed my advice." Ashra quickly added. "You are a Magius. A strong one too. But not strong enough. Not yet. There's a way for you to gain the power needed to save your husband, and your friends."

Saki blinked. "How?"

Ashra calmly pointed at the 15 Moon Colonists soldiers trapped inside the glass cell. "Drain their runes. All of them. Not just to take over their body… take over everything. Every last drop of it until you drained the Rune of their lifeforce and make it part of your own. Then, and only then, will you have the strength needed to prevail."

Needless to say, the Moon Colonists were scared shitless at this proposal. They grew even more terrified when they saw Saki's contemplating eyes landed on them.

Ryuuji immediately roared in anger. "Out of the question!"

"Why?"

"Why!?" Ryuuji growled. "It's unthinkable! How could you just blatantly asking her to drain them dry? They're living human beings!"

"They are also your enemies." Ashra flatly responded. "They've tried to kill you. And give them half the chance, I believe they'll do it again. From a strategic point of view, they're too dangerous to be kept around alive. But to simply kill them is a waste of valuable resources. The only option is to claim their runes: take their strength as your own, shed their weakness. This is how Magius fight their enemies. This is our way."

The other Magius also nodded in agreement and encouragement. Saki gazed at those 15 people, the people she saw in her… nightmare… and yet, strangely enough, when Saki peered into the memory of the Soldier she jacked earlier, she saw no memory that pertains to that horrid event. By now, Saki was already half convinced that it was just her delusion… but she had no interest on draining another drop of their memory. She's not sure she'll like what she might find.

That was the secondary reason. The main reason being… that just ain't her style.

Saki had other ideas. "Your way." She looked at Ashra. "Right. Right." Saki shook her head. It was easy for Ashra to see Saki has no intention to go on with her idea.

"It is the only way."

"Is it?" Saki moved to a console. "Let me show you another way." She pressed her thumb on said console, and much to Ashra surprise, the Plexiglas door of her cell hissed open. "This is my way."

Ashra is as bewildered as she is amused. "I… I don't understand. How… why?"

"I'm Haruto's wife." Saki stated the obvious. "Is it so weird that my husband allowed my DNA to open the cell door?"

"But… why?"

"In all honesty, I didn't trust you." Saki glared at Ashra. "I mean… I never talked to you, never even seen you until today. But Haruto had. And he trusts you. Trust you to be different." Saki nodded. "Prove him right."

For some reason, Ashra didn't find it in her to argue back. Saki didn't give her any compelling reason why she should obey that request, but Ashra also felt the need to do what she asked. What that need pertain exactly, she cannot say for certain. "…I can't do it alone. Can I take some of my retainers with me?"

"You can have two."

"Two is enough."

Moments later, Ashra and her two retainers had already walked out of the County Prison. One of them is a large strong man, the other a small young girl.

"Ashra-sama… are you… seriously going to do this?"

"We have nothing to lose." Ashra was also asking why she would do this, seeing there's no gain in it either. "Jeay, go to the Dorssian Starbase."

The Large burly man nodded.

"Rasa, go to the Com Tower, restore the network."

"Yes ma'am!" The little girl saluted.

"Subdue all opposition. Be wary, civilians in close proximity. But annihilate all hostile combatants with extreme prejudice."

One last salute, and Jeay jumped off the ground, covering a vast distance with just one stomp, cracking the ground in the process. Rasa knelt down before sprinting. She became a blur an instant later. Only Ashra remained. It's been a while since she fought out of the confines of a machine or any human weapons. Pink runes began to form around her and her feet lift off the ground. With a pulse of a thought, she vanished into thin air.

00000000000000

The Captain of the Destroyers noticed the many survivors on the supposedly killzone. And the Rail Gun barrage needs some time to recharge. "Send in the bombers."

"Sir?"

"The Colonists are of no use to us now. No witnesses. Send in the bombers. What we just did… if any one of them survived beyond today… we're dead."

And so, the Destroyers opened up its hangar, and streams of Splicers geared for bombing run spill out.

The surviving colonists still had no idea of what's coming. When they saw the Splicers coming out, they still think the planes are coming to their help.

"Look! Arus' fleet are coming to help us!"

"Alright!"

Raizo's regenerative power chose that time to wake the man up. Raizo grunted and took a moment to register he's an arm short. Yet he feel no pain. Still, he looked through the gaping crack on his cockpit and saw the Splicers coming their way. As with the Kirschbaum, the Novus Magius brawler boy immediately recognized hostile intention when he saw one. Problem is, his Kagerou gave up on him and his throat hadn't regenerated yet so he can't say a word about it even if he wanted to.

The Splicers are getting closer, and one of them already had the bomb deployed on its underside.

That was when the survivors began to realize the splicers were not coming to their rescue.

But by then the Splicer is right on top of their heads, and the bomb is away.

"Oh my…"

Time seemingly stopped for the people when the bomb is just seconds away from exploding…

…until a single stream of blue laser shot the bomb and blew it right out of the air.

"!?"

The Splicers were caught off guard by the premature explosion and the fighters were knocked off balance by the mid air shockwave. By the time they managed to regain control of their ship, the smoke of the explosion had cleared, allowing them to get a clear view of the culprit.

"Those sons of bitches…" Kyuuma gritted his teeth. "Haven't they had their fill of death already-!?" No sooner than he said that, Kyuuma heard a hysteric roar.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" A Colonists, half mad in rage and despair, slammed his body against Kyuuma's Valvrave armor. He accomplished nothing but a loud thud and the Osiris gained no additional scratches. "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" The over the edge Colonist screamed and started bashing vainly at the Osiris. "If you monsters had never come here, none of this would happen! You god damn brain sucking demons caused all this! You stole our families, sucked our brains out, now you're bringing Arus' wrath upon us! This is all your fa-"

The Colonist tirade was cut short as soon as a fed up Billy's fist finally shut him up when it found its way to his face. "YOU IDIOTS!" Billy roared into the scene with an injured but alive and conscious Shoko followed behind him. "ARE YOU SO BLINDED BY YOUR FEAR, YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING!?" The young soldier yelled. When it was clear everyone's listening to him, Billy lowered his volume, but maintain his firmness. "Everyone! Listen. Don't run. Don't run from this reality and accept the fact. Arus has betrayed us. We trusted them and they lied to us. That barrage just now was aimed to kill us all. Because we know too much. We've seen too much!"

"That can't be!" Some of the Colonist is still in denial. "The Government wouldn't lie to us! They say the Magius are monsters and-"

"You blindly trust other people's words and used your fear: look where that got us. Look at what's happening now and think! Who's trying to kill us? Who's risking their lives to defend us!? Don't let other people make you see only what they wanted you see, you have to see the whole truth in front of you with your own eyes and think with your own damn mind! Otherwise you don't have the right to say anything!" Billy roared until his throat gone dry.

Either the Colonists had finally saw some sense, or they're just too tired and horrified to act, whatever the case, the hostile intention they once had dissipated. The threat of the angry civilians was abated… for now. But there's still the matter of the incoming bombers. The Kagerou squad can't protect them anymore, and the Valvrave could barely stand.

Which leave the Osiris to take out that Destroyer and everything else it'll threw at them. But first, he turned to Shoko. "Shoko… you're… you're okay?"

"I'm fine." Shoko was holding on to her bleeding shoulder. "Don't worry about me. Concentrate on stopping that Destroyer!"

Kyuuma nodded and then he turned to Billy. "Get the civilians out of here. I'll buy you some time."

"Right. Godspeed." Billy saluted.

Kyuuma replied with a nod before the Osiris take flight and head straight towards the incoming fleet of Bombers. "Defend and do not engage." Kyuuma growled as he saw the incoming splicers. "Alright then. This is getting somewhat complicated." Naturally, that no kill order extends to what is clearly the hostile enemy forces… even though said enemy intends to bomb them off the face of the earth, civilians be damned. Out of the necessity, the Osiris switched its ammunition with live ones. Rubber bullets to armor piercing Hard Afterglow shell rounds, taser warheads to Explosive Incendiary Munitions, lasers at full power, Tungsten Shrapnel Fragmentation Grenades, and high explosive Armor Piercing warheads.

The Osiris took flight and engaged the Splicers head on. But Kyuuma took extra care as to avoid the cockpits. "Anywhere but the cockpit. Anywhere BUT the cockpit!" The first that fly was a salvo of missiles that throw the fleet's formation into disarray. The Osiris landed on a plane and fired both its wings off. When Osiris moved away, the pilot ejected safely out of the exploding plane.

But things get hectic real quick, what's with the Osiris being outnumbered a 100 to one. Literally.

"Argh! Shit!" Eventually 2 to 3 bombers finally managed to get through the net and went straight towards the civilians…

Until a pink energy blast smashed one of the Splicers off the sky and hit other two, resulting in a massive explosion just inches above the colonists head. When the Colonists recovered from the shock, they saw someone they did not expect.

Ashra arrived just in time as she floated a few inches of the ground, clad in her pinkish rune, her finger still glowing with the energy she used to blast the Splicers right out of the sky.

The Colonist recognized her as the Magius they've met earlier yesterday.

00000000000000

"W… What is going on here?"

As was said before, Takahi spotted Satomi from the multiple discharge of the Behemoth's plasma caster. Track its ion signature and she soon caught up with his trail… which take the shape of an Arus carrier… who looked like it was torn apart by an oversized gorilla. Couple that with the many viciously melted parts of the ship… it looked like something Raizo would do… when he's really, really mad.

But Raizo is still stuck on the Moonbase. This is… this is Satomi they're talking about here.

"Ninomiya-sama!" Lily called her. She spotted something among the ruins.

But what she found shocked her even more…

00000000000000

Ninomiya's group wasn't the only one who found something.

What she felt first… was an impulse. A need. She didn't know for what or why, she only felt the need… to bite. And to drink whatever gushed out.

She followed that impulse when she felt something on her lips. Tastiest thing she had ever drank filled her mouth.

And then… what came after was blessed awareness. Just when she thought she had closed the world around her, the world reopened… only this time, she's watching it from another person's eyes.

When Akira blinked her eyes, she saw a familiar sight of herself curled still like a living corpse she wished to become. That was when Akira realized… she just jacked someone's body. But who? She looked at her hands… and saw a male Dorssian clad firm hand. "Huh!?" Akira snapped into attention when she realized her body is not her own, but someone remarkably familiar. She looked at any reflective surface, and A-Drei's face looked back at her. Akira gaped in shock. She quickly took back her body and bite herself back.

The first thing A-Drei said as soon as he regained his consciousness: "You're a difficult girl to find aren't you?"

"H… How…"

A-Drei sighed. "No matter how good is your stealth system, it still needs Runes to operate. And when your runes fell beneath the required level, the stealth system shut down on its own. After that, your heat signature is allover the place. It's just a simple matter of careful observation."

"J… Just go away!" Akira scampered further in. "Just… just leave me be!"

"Now, see, THIS is the sort of attitude that got you into trouble in the first place!" A-Drei growled as he hastily grabbed her arms and kept her from balling herself, again. "I've read your files! I know what you've done!" A little bit of struggle and A-Drei finally managed to get Akira to see him face to face. "You can't run from this! You mustn't run! Remember when you chose to transform? You said you're not doing it for the world, you're doing it for Shashinami Shoko. You've already taken a step to change yourself. Now you have to take responsibility for your choices. I'm not gonna pretend to fully understand what you've went through, but you can't just shut everything out and hope things will go back the way they once there. There's no going back, no matter how much you wish otherwise!"

Akira continued to struggle to break free. She only had a drop of runes and she hadn't eaten anything in a long while. She's even weaker than she's ever been as a human. There's no escape. Irritation turned to anger. "Who are you!? Say things like that!" She barked. "You ran too!"

"!?"

"I… read your file…" Akira grimaced. "Know. Who you are. Who you REALLY are. And I know what you did."

A-drei frowned and he finally let the girl go. "I see." He should've seen this coming. The girl who can crack open New JIOR encryption while she was 9 would have no trouble breaking through Dorssian firewalls. And he'd imagine the Karstein's encrypted file that Akira read would count up the long list of troubles A-Drei made in his attempt to escape from the facility, including attempted suicide, small amount of sabotage and riot incitement. "Yes. You're right. I ran. Many times I tried to. During the early days of induction to the Karstein facility, I… still can't accept the fact that I'm no longer royalty. I lied to myself, thinking that someday, if I waited long enough… things will change. Things will get better in the end, then I can go back to the way they once were. I was a fool."

Akira tilted her head up.

"Things inevitably change. Sometimes you can decide when it will change, often times the decision was made for you. And there are times when change can be undone, but in most times… they're there to stay. And we have to live with it whether it's good or bad."

"My case… change… from bad to worse." Akira curled down as she cried to her knees. "I hurt… my only friend. I…"

"That is the nature of change, Renbokuji Akira. They're invariable painful because… while there are already older stuff you carry with you, you took in new things to carry, adding the burden. You'll have to shed behind some stuff that you hold dear along with all the memories and meanings it possess. And you may never see them again. And change affects everyone, not just yourself, but also the people around you. Especially those whom you hold dear. Sometimes the closer they are to you, the more pain they felt."

Akira felt more mortified.

"Which is why running away from your friend in this painful moment is pretty much the worst decision you've made, don't you think?" A-Drei rolled his eyes. "If you truly are her friend, her close friend, then she's probably hurting just about as much as you right now. Don't you think she'll need you at her side?"

"She'll… hate me."

"She might, or she might not. I've given up trying to figure out how her brain works." It's true. As expected of a girl who can 'outsmart' L-elf, one of the smartest soldiers he had ever known. "But… if she can't cope with that change, that's her problem."

"I… I don't want to lose Shoko…"

"I don't presume to tell you how to deal with what you've lost." A-Drei pointed to the great empty space of the screen. "But in this instance, you might want to take another look at what you haven't lost."

"Eh?"

"Your brother is out there, somewhere, tearing out of the base like a bat out of hell, looking for you."

"My… brother…?" Akira's eyes widened in disbelief.

00000000000000

Meanwhile, back in Moonbase, the three Magius spent little time enjoying their newfound freedom. Now, they're just eager to unleash their power upon their enemies. An event that doesn't go unnoticed by a certain interested party.

The Valvrave remained locked in its place, but it is currently underwent some repairs by an army drones released by the opponent's mech.

"The time is almost here." The man transferred a video feed from unknown sources, depicting what's happening, in particular, the release of the three Magius. "Impressive, wouldn't you say?"

0000000

Ignoring the terrified look of the masses down beneath her feet, Ashra concentrated the bombers flying above. "Okay." With a jerk, she took flight to the skies. The Splicers opened fire at her, but she didn't even try to dodge. The pink aura of rune protected her, the bullets that can shred a tank was bounced off. She gathered energy on a finger and a pink laser streamed out of the said finger, slicing a Splicer in half. The pilot didn't have time to scream when the laser burned him to a crisp.

Unlike Kyuuma or the Kagerou pilots, Ashra clearly didn't have qualms in eliminating her targets. That is something Kyuuma had issues with.

"Alright! Stop!" The Osiris grabbed Ashra's arm before she can fire another shot. "Hold your horses there, girl. I appreciate the help, but don't go on a killing frenzy all the sudden."

"I'm not on a killing frenzy. I'm protecting the civilians." Ashra shrugged flatly. "As for the Arus bombers… they're your enemies, are they not? I'd also like to add that they're combatants. They're warriors. Just like us. We all knew the risk when we took the job, do we not?"

"Be that as it may, they're just humans." Kyuuma grunted. "I won't let you kill them."

"You've killed so many to get this far and now you questioned the morality of it?" Ashra frowned in annoyance. "How is it different between then and now?" She shrugged to the terrified civilians down below. "If I don't kill them, they will kill us, and then they will kill the civilians. Is that what you want?"

"I…" Kyuuma was somewhat at loss for words. Plus, given the fact they were being shot at, the situation is not exactly conducive for some deep thinking.

"Innocent people will die for every second you waste doubting yourself." Ashra firmly turned to the fleet of Splicers. "I will do what I must now. Stop me or help me, make your choice, but make it quick."

Leaving the confused Kyuuma behind, Ashra renewed his assault by a head on collision with a splicer which she survived unscathed.

0000000

In his cockpit, Haruto blinked in confusion when he saw Ashra and two other Magius are on the loose. Other than him, there's only one other person he would trust with the lock for their cells. "Saki… she let them go?" A smile found his way to Haruto's lips. "Clever girl!"

"Clever?" The man sound amused. "I wouldn't call it that. More like thoughtless action born from desperation. I doubt she spent much time thinking through the long term consequences of her actions."

"You think?" Haruto challenged the man. "Magius are defending the civilians! And I'm not talking about us Novus Magius, but a real actual Magius! See? Even Magius can find it in themselves to care about the humans!"

"Indeed? And what do you expect? That the humans would understand that naïve sentiment?" To make his point, the man then transferred a live feed of an up close look of the civilians' faces. Lord knows how he acquired it.

Haruto looked at the feed… and he was somewhat confused.

"Well? Do they look grateful? Do they look hopeful? Do they cheer or cry tears of joy in gladness?" What was shown in that feed was the look of despair, horror, distrust, and, above all, fear. They were afraid of Ashra… and the Novus Magius as well. They stood transfixed, completely paralyzed in horror.

"I… I don't understand… why!? Why are they… afraid?"

"Because they've received their validation to be afraid."

"Humans are afraid of things they can't control. What they can't put down. Long before you revealed the council's existence, men had always suspected that they're no longer in control of their destiny."

"I repeat, we are under attack!" The situation was no better in the Dorssian Starbase. The Arus infiltrators had hijacked a couple of heavy armored walkers (the futuristic equivalent to a tank) to guard the perimeter when Jeay fell upon them. The Tanks fired their shells, but they were pulverized upon contact with the juggernaut of a Magius. The First Tank was trampled beneath his feet, and Jeay rip the pulverized tank turret off its foundations and use it to beat another Walker Tank flat. An Arus managed to get their hands on a bazooka. He quickly take aim at the burly Magius' unprotected back and fired. Unfortunately for the soldier, Jeay sensed the incoming projectile from a mile away. He caught the missile, observe it for a moment, and help the missile to find its mark by slamming its warhead to his forehead. The Arus soldiers couldn't help but to wet their pants when they saw Jeay's grinning visage amidst the clearing smoke.

"When Shashinami Shoko demonstrated the obedience of the Novus Magius to her, that fear was slightly abated under the belief that the humans had the monsters under control."

The Arus soldier in the Coms tower fared no better, because unlike the previous two cases, they can't even see their opponent. To be precise, the only thing they can see are the afterimages Rasa left behind when she had to momentarily stop to take down a target. And even that was only for half a second, after that she returned to her world of blurring speed.

"But then, your beloved wife unleashed the true power of the Magius right in front of their eyes. That fear is renewed. Multiplied even. They were once again reminded of their powerlessness. Their feebleness. Their fragility. They were showed that they are hilariously overpowered by this beings."

Ashra continued to fire streams of lasers amidst a hailstorm of bullets, each reaping an infernal tally. This is no longer a battle. It's an asymmetrical slaughter. Kyuuma did his best to keep up, but unlike Ashra, he tried his damndest to not kill them. Hence he lagged behind her 4 to 1.

As Haruto listened on, the repairs on the Valvrave had also been completed. And on that note, the man also released his mech from its bindings.

"And in that realization, they will once again turn against you. This time, they'll have no need for Arus' honey juice of lies poured into their ears. They've seen the facts with their own eyes. Even if you 'pacify' them now, history will simply repeat, again and again."

By now, the man had let the fully repaired Valvrave go, though he still kept the Blackrose in his possession, just in case.

"What do you want me to do? Choose one over the other?"

"It's not what I want you to do. It's what are YOU prepared to do?" The man returned the Blackrose to the Valvrave. "In the mean time, you might want to… hurry along now. Your friend Renbokuji could use your help. And I don't mean the younger one."

"You don't know that." That was his final word for Haruto had no more time to spare. The Valvrave took flight and zoomed off, leaving behind one battlefield and head towards another with haste.

The man, left alone, smiled confidently to no one in particular but himself. "Come now. You've benefitted from L-Elf's accurate prophecy more than once. Who do you think taught him how to make such prophecies?" Cain Dressel smirked.

00000000000000

The Malefic was so drained dry of her Runes; it couldn't even activate its basic propulsion system. A-Drei had no choice but to use his Kirschbaum to tow the powerless primate engine behind him.

Thankfully, the communication was restored soon after. Kriemhild quickly filled him in on the latest events. Granted, she told him that the situation is under control… under control as in… the Magius on their side had just squeezed the last of Arus soldiers to death inside their tanks. A-Drei quickly realized the urgency of this situation, and so he quickly opted to return to base ASAP in their current setting.

"I'm returning to base with the Malefic. Once we've ascertained that the base is secure, we will continue the search for Renbokuji Satomi. Right now, I'm returning with his sister. ETA, 15 minutes. A-Drei over and out."

"Onii-chan…"

A-Drei looked at Akira. "?"

"…my brother… he became a Magius? A vampire just like me?"

"Yes." A-Drei nodded. "We need him as a Magius to commandeer the Valravn, even though we did design that thing to be powered and controlled by Pino as well. We used the behemoth for the process. Then again… he had shown signs of wanting to become a Magius for quite some time. So we say rather than wait for him to break a neck in his desperation, we'll just give it to him anyway."

"W… Why… would he do that?" Akira asked the question, but a second later, she realized she already knew the answer.

"Is it weird?" A-Drei blinked. "He's your brother. He's what you'd call… overprotective? For some reason I don't understand, he seem to be quite eager in sending me death threats at daily basis. Something about me treating you right, and that if I break your heart, he'll break my neck. What was that supposed to mean?"

For obvious reasons, Akira blushed all the way to her ears. Thank goodness A-Drei was THAT dense. "I had… no idea." But Akira also felt conflicted with mixed feelings in regards to her brother. But then, a faint smile made its way to her lips.

A-Drei merely shrugged and leaft the girl alone… until his sensor began to register something… quite out of place. The Signature was that of… but… "Wait… What… what is that?"

00000000000000

By now, Ashra had obliterated almost half of the Splicers sent their way. Kyuuma just couldn't take it anymore. "I said enough!" He finally took matters into his own hand and grab hold of Ashra's arm just before she shot another splicer right in the cockpit. "This is not how we do things!" Kyuuma demonstrated this by firing on the splicer's wings. The plane fell down, but the pilot had enough to jump away safely.

Ashra didn't respond. "…"

Seeing the Osiris on the scene, they all thought the blue valvrave is there to join the slaughter, and thus the remaining few had lost all taste for slaughter and retreated to the Destroyer. Ashra didn't chase them, but now she had the Destroyer to worry about.

Fortunately, it was around that time reinforcements arrived. Human reinforcements.

Rasa must've already secured the Com Tower, because the communication was finally restored. As proof of this, Jeay arrived at the scene with Kriemhild and an army of Dorssian survivors in tow. The Moon Colonists flocked to the Dorssian troopers, desperate to make as much distance as possible from the Magius, Novus or otherwise.

The Arus Destroyers realized that now, not only they're outmatched, they're also outnumbered. "Nothing to it. Is the rail gun fully charged yet?"

"Just waiting for your orders sir."

"Alright. Aim at the hangar, we're gonna bust our way-"

No sooner than he said that, something rumbled beneath the rubble. Smashing through the ruins of the old base, Valravn ascended out. The giant magenta warship easily dwarfed the Destroyer and she used that size to block the Destroyer's escape route by aiming the enemy warship with its array of heavy cannon turrets.

"Sorry I'm late, children." Pino's voice echoed from the warship's speaker. Inside its cyberspace, the former Magius High Queen crossed her arms grimly; her ever present smile vanished, replaced by cold flat lips of fury. Events that had transpired today isn't exactly something one should be smiling to. "It took me a while to evacuate the crew and the remainder of the Kagerous, but we're okay here."

A super dreadnought at the back, several hundred angry soldiers, mobs, and a few aliens at the front. No matter how they look at it, there's no way out of this unscathed. The Captain grew desperate. "Turn us upside down!"

"Sir?"

"We'll use our underside Rail Guns! Fire at the weather dome!"

The Destroyer began to rotate its underside, its rail guns charged up.

"What are they… doing…?" Kyuuma gaped.

Ashra was the first to realize what those butchers are up to. "EVERYONE HOLD ON TO SOMETHING!"

The Destroyer opened fire, and the rail guns tore through the weather dome with impunity. Within moments, a hole was torn out of the dome, a gaping maw huge enough for the Destroyer to quickly flew through to the dark space. But as that happened, the air was sucked out into open space, pulling everything inside of the dome towards said airhole. The buildings remained tethered to the ground, some trees managed to hold on, but many people who didn't have time to grab hold on to something were spaced out. Kyuuma quickly zoomed towards a batch of people and managed to rescue some of them, but the rest were sucked screaming into the void. "NO!"

Ashra remained still where she is amidst this raging maelstrom. But the civilians beneath her could barely hold on. She stretched up her hands and a large area around her was enclosed in a massive pink energy barrier, everyone who was almost lifted off their feet until a moment ago had found their footing again when the barrier enclosed them. When the dome repair system went online and quickly closed the breach, the Destroyer had safely left the Moonbase, ignoring the many spaced out human corpses that resulted from their escape.

The occupants of the Moonbase can only stare angrily at the Destroyer floating menacingly above their base.

"Recharge the Rail Guns again." The Captain weren't finished. "We'll barrage that Moonbase to oblivion!"

And so the Destroyers Rail Gun array began to recharge as electricity coursed through its barrels. The occupants in the Moonbase Colony knew what's coming, but there's little they can do but to wait for the flash of lightning that will accompany the Destroyer's barrage.

But when said flash of lightning finally came, it didn't originate from the said ship. Rather, it came from an actual pillar of lightning that struck the Destroyer down the middle and rip it in half. The Detsroyer let loose one last spark of electricity before it exploded violently in space.

The crowd looked up to see who their savior, and gaped when they realized, their helper is not a friend…

…neither is it an enemy…

It's something worse.

00000000000000

What A-Drei and Akira found in dark void of space was the Carmilla and her retinues. They were torn apart, Carmilla was barely intact, her Kagerou escorts was even worse. A-Drei went out of his cockpit and checked the wreckage for any survivors. The first he found was Takahi. And judging by the red stain of blood dampening her pilot suit, she was injured pretty badly. "Ninomiya Takahi, are you alright?"

"What does it looked like!?" Takahi groaned in annoyance. If she can still bark like that, she'll be fine. In fact, the next thing she said was: "Forget about me. Lily, and Eri! How are they?"

A quick check on their cockpits discovered that while they're practically alive, they're visibly shaken and the injuries they've suffered require an immediate medical attention. Unlike their mistress, they have no healing factors to rely on. Regardless, they're not exactly in danger. "But I don't think they can pilot again for a while." A-Drei surmised.

"I see." Takahi groaned as she finally noticed the powerless Malefic being towed behind the Kirschbaum. "So you found her. Is she still alive?"

"Yes?"

"Good. That's very good. Which means I can strangle her to death myself!" Though she spoke of murder, she made no signs that she'll do as promised. Whether she's too wounded or she didn't mean it, she's understandably in a terrible mood.

"Who did this?" A-Drei has no time to entertain the idea. He's more interested in what kind an enemy could do this to her. "Arus?"

"Like hell… no. I mean… there was an Arus carrier but… he beat us to it, and then he beat US out!"

"Who?"

"Satomi." Takahi answered in between her gaping breath. "Believe it or not, it was Satomi. I mean… I'm not sure why or how, but I think… He snapped. Big time."

00000000000000

Flashback…

"Renbokuji Satomi, 18 years old, the president of the student council of the Sakimori High. Son of etc, etc, brother of Renbokuji Akira." Cain gleefully zoomed through Satomi's profile. "Good leadership skills, good power of observation…" Can smply sped past all of Satomi's features and take a short but closer look at his personality test and psychological state. "In short, he was born by the elites, raised to be the elites, and thus he was expected to become Elites." Cain chuckled. "He's fallen short of expectations, hasn't he?"

"What was that supposed to mean?" Haruto, back then still locked in his place, growled.

"It means that Renbokuji Satomi is your modern day equivalent to middle age royalty, I suppose. A Nobleborn. Born and raised to stand above you commoner types. No offense."

"I don't know about that, and personally I don't care." Haruto gritted his teeth. "But if you lay a finger on-"

"Oh no, no, no. Mr. Tokishima, you misunderstood me. I'm not trying to threaten your friend, I'm trying to warn you."

"Warn me?"

"Crudely put, you are a commoner. Commoner lacked the understanding of the emotional burden a nobleborn like Mr. Renbokuji carry. You can smile when you want to, you can cry when you have to. But Mr. Renbokuji's psychological profile told me he has no such freedom. I mean, I looked at his parents here, and… dear me… if we still live during the French Revolution era, they'll be the first to be dragged to the Guillotine. Terrible thing what they did to their children."

"What's the point?"

"Runes are information particles. Knowledge turned to energy. And humans are an ample source of that energy, found most abundantly in their memories."

"This again?"

"This will interest you." Cain moved on to the next point. "In humans, that energy has a spice no other race has. That spice is called emotion. The strength of one's emotion lends weight to the quality of the Runes, increasing their energy yield exponentially. Now, imagine a coke bottle. You shook it, and the carbon will build up until the content burst forth and snapped the cap clean off."

Suddenly, Haruto catch on with what Cain was trying to say. "You mean Satomi's…"

"Ah, very good. You catch on quick. Yes. A nobleborn like Renbokuji kept his emotion bottled tight under lock and key of so called 'proper etiquette' and 'social standing'. Nobleborn like him was educated to rein in their emotions, but I can ensure you… whenever he sees any one of you commoners acting as your heart wills you, he may feign disgust when in reality he want nothing more than to… how do you people say it? Join the fun?" Cain chuckled. "All that frustration, all that pent emotion, just… waiting to pop open. Waiting for his mind to be pushed to the brink of its limit. When he's human, the day that mental fortitude being broken might only result in a harmless explosion of rage… but now that he's a Magius… now that his very own emotion and mind can physically manifest into physical energy… 18 years worth of pent up emotions and frustration, spicing the amount of Runes he had amassed all those years, Tokishima-kun. Do you have any idea how much Rune Mr. Renbokuji can yield? The disappearance of his sister has now pushed him to a breaking point. If he were to receive another blow that made him snaps in this crucial moment…" Cain smirked knowingly. "…like being open-fired upon by a luckless and clueless Arus carrier who had no idea what they were dealing with… You who had suffered an Overload surely understand my concerns?"

Flashback ends…

00000000000000

"What the fuck did that Renbokuji punk did to MY Valvrave!?" Even though he's lost almost half of his body, Raizo can still find it in him to scream in rage when he saw what become of Behemoth.

Looming over the Moonbase is the Behemoth… but something is wrong with it. Something is SERIOUSLY wrong with it. For a start, massive growth of yellow solid hardlight crystals are bursting out of proportion across the mech's heat vents and armor seams, explosively adding to its bulk, twisting its originally humanoid shape to a crystalline hulking abomination. Said crystals also protruded out of the many openings which resulted from blaster fire, a clear sign that the Behemoth had endured a fierce combat before this horrid transformation. Another tell tale sign of the battle was that there are parts of an Arus battleship welded to various parts of Behemoth's frame, including a couple of energy cannons and missile launchers embedded on the crystal growth, fully functional by means unknown, torn from the Arus Carrier who had the misfortune to open fire at the Behemoth. A concentration of said parts were mostly converged upon its originally inexistent left arm. Said torn parts had been welded together by the mass of yellow crystals into the shape of a massive monstrous left arm.

While the twisted state of the Behemoth does gave Raizo enough reason to be angry, its horrid appearance also gave everyone another reason to grew another dose of fear. A fear that was validated when the Twisted Behemoth slowly, menacingly turn its gaze upon them with its intention was anything but friendly. The giant bent back, and as they feared, it plunged down towards the dome, fully intending to smash it with its bulk.

The specatting crowds braced themselves for the inevitable collision, and it happened again.

A collision occurred, but it was not the collision they had expected.

It was the collision of the Twisted Behemoth and the speeding Valvrave who arrived just in time to body slam the Behemoth out of its trajectory.

"RAAAAAAAAGH!" Haruto roared as his Valvrave grabbed hold tight on a struggling and trashing Behemoth as he pushed the yellow monster bot away from the Moonbase. The two Valvraves violently crash landed on the moon surface, the Red Valvrave kept his hold on the enraged Behemoth as he dragged the trashing yellow giant across the ground, chiseling pieces of the crystal growth and ship parts embedded on his body. The Behemoth continued to struggle and in one moment of laxity from the Valvrave's part, it managed to threw his grip off and grabbed the red mech's neck before tossing him away.

Haruto quickly regained control of the Valvrave and he slammed his left claw to the ground to halt his flight and nailed him back to the ground. The Valvrave turned to its opponent. It seems Haruto had successfully drew its attention to himself. Good. "Satomi! Can you hear me!?"

The misshapen giant didn't respond.

"Satomi! Calm down! I know what you're going through, but this is not helping! You have to control your emotions!'

But within the ruined insides of the twisted Behemoth, Satomi was toolost in his own world to comprehend whatever Haruto was shouting in his com. All he can hear are the cries of a distant past. A distant horrible past.

"Confound it, Satomi! You're a Renbokuji, yet how dare you bring home an 87%? I expect a 97% out of you! Otherwise what's the point of you being born!?"

"A Renbokuji must be better than the rest! How could you live with yourself with these results?"

"Keep going! How dare you carry our family name and couldn't even do this!? You mustn't' break, you mustn't buckle! Keep going!"

"Don't think of anything! Your only purpose in life as a Renbokuji is to go to top! And nothing else!"

"You're a Renbokuji, and yet this is the best you can do? What a disappointment!"

"You're a disgrace!"

"A DISGRACE!"

In the past, there was one person who had kept these horrid memories at bay. One person that kept his sanity intact and maintain his will to live on. The only person he cared above all others. But now, wherever he looked… that person isn't there. His mind clouded by these tormenting visions and delusions… or whatever they maybe. "Akira…"

Haruto finally heard a word from Satomi's tired lips. "Satomi?"

"Akira…" Satomi croaked. "Akira… where… where are you!?"

"Satomi… calm down… and listen. Akira is-"

"AKIRAAAAA!" Satomi's screech in the com drowned out whatever Haruto wished to convey. The Behemoth respond to that hysteric scream as it began its head on charge towards the Valvrave, left arm swinging.

Realizing he had to force Satomi to see sense, Haruto had to respond properly. The left Yashagarasu power claw balled into a fist. This Gauntlet, the Yashagarasu Power Claws was the prototype. The basis on which all Impact Boosters are modeled after. Its power was nothing compared to its lesser variants. The Heat Gauge on Haruto monitor descended rapidly from 87 to 12 in a blink of an eye. A burst of runes erupted from the seams of the Valvrave's left shoulder mounted Ardor Grip heat fins, red solid afterglow energy burst out of the seams of the said power gauntlet as it momentarily bulged, fully loaded with energy. And with that, the Valvrave also plunged in for a head on charge.

The two giants met at the center just as they swing their fists against one another, each loaded with unearthly force of world shattering proportions.

And when the two fists connected, a massive shockwave exploded from the impact to testify just how much power packed in those punches, rattling its surrounding to oblivion. The impact can even be felt all the way to the Moon base as a large scale earthquake, further sending its occupants into horror. Windows from office buildings and houses were shattered by the sheer aftershock.

And that was just the starting gong of the duel between two Valvraves. The Valvrave was thrown off due to the sheer difference in brute strength. But he did manage to shatter a sizable portion of the Behemoth's crystal left arm. The Valvrave quickly recovered and aimed its wing mounted laser cannons at the Behemoth. The giant used its slightly damaged left arm as a shield, but the intense laser beams began to grind through said arm. The Arus carrier components that shaped said arm was never designed to handle a concentrated Rune beams. In response, the Behemoth cocked its right arm and returned fire with a barrage of lightning bolts and a ball of plasma. The Valvrave's wings responded and enveloped the red Valvrave while it maintain its laser blast. The plasma balls and the lightning bolts were drained dry into the wing mounted Rune Absorber system, the energy of which was then channeled into the laser cannon, intensifying its strength. The Behemoth's left arm is disintegrating faster. Desperation gave birth to cunningness. The Behemoth maintained its barrage of lightning while four of its Titan's fist detached themselves from their port and interlocked together before they rush forward. Haruto was caught off guard and the Titan Fist bludgeon his wing to oblivion, stopping the absorption and allowing the lightning bolts to electrocute his systems, disabling his Valvrave from a moment before the second wave of the bludgeoning arrived and knocked him off the sky, sending him spiraling out of control.

Wasting no time, the Behemoth leapt up towards the still disoriented Valvrave. Haruto's systems were too fried, they couldn't reboot fast enough to even comprehend what's coming. When the screen is back online, the first thing he saw was the up close look of the Behemoth's oversized left fist. The punch shot the Valvrave back to the moon and sent him grinding uncontrollably across the moon surface until he was pushed through a protruding rock. When the Valvrave get back up, Haruto quickly realized a worse predicament that awaits him. His other sense nerve wings had been torn off. "Damn…" Not that he needed it to fly in this weak gravity pull, but now he can no longer rely on the Rune Absorption system for this fight and the lack of wings will severely reduce his aerial maneuverability, something he sorely needs right now. Thankfully, this time Haruto get a sense of his surroundings a little quicker and he noticed the Behemoth was bulldozing his way towards him, all intentions indicate he's going to bulrush him.

"No you don't!" The Laser Cannons fired, coupled with the barrage of the waist mounted Volc Arms rifles. It didn't damaged the opponent per se, but aiming at the units' face does accomplished its intended purpose. The Behemoth had to cover his head using his oversized left arm, which means, in the precious seconds it took for the Behemoth to trample him underfoot, he's literally running blind. When the Behemoth no longer sensed the pressure of the laser and the barrage of solid bolts of energy, it removed his left arm only to find the Valvrave was nowhere in sight. A quick check and it found the Valvrave had ducked down in a low charging battoujutsu stance. Before it could react, a silver glimmer of the Z Muramasa Futouchi fluidly arched from the red Valvrave's waist, and the Behemoth's lower half was severed. Losing his footing, the berserk mech fell on its bisected knees and rolled uncontrollably across the ground. Now it's Haruto's turn to not give the opponent a chance to recover. Unsheathing his other blade, Haruto rushed in with a plan in mind. Satomi's mind was too far lost that he did not rely on the Behemoth's complex limb displacement system. That's good. He'll just slice the units to bits until only the cockpit remained. Worst case scenario he'll have to destroy the Valvrave completely and Pino will have to rebuild the unit from scratch… if she could.

But perhaps Haruto had once again gravely underestimated Satomi's feral and unpredictable Magius self preservation instinct. Just as the maddened Satomi noticed the Valvrave rushing in with obvious ill intent, an instinctive desire to fight back brought some form of clarity. The dismembered legs behind Haruto twitched to life, and the legs aimed the Titan fists familiars attached to it at the Valvrave's unprotected back. Haruto only have half a second to comprehend the warning signals of a high energy discharge coming from his back when the barrage of lightning struck him full from his back. The Valvrave stopped its gait and fell on its knees with electricity arching through its every being, disabling almost all of its systems. Meanwhile, the Behemoth is fast approaching from the front, dragging himself towards him with his oversized arm. Haruto groaned amidst the sound of the electrocuted OS telling him his capacitors are overloaded. His energy meters are off the chart! Wait a minute… "REROUTE ALL ENERGY TO THE LASER CANNONS!" Haruto roared, and the Valvrave obeyed. The electricity coursing through the mech began to converge on its wing mounted overhead twin laser cannons. With a jerk, the Valvrave fired its supercharged Laser blast. The Behemoth raised his left arm in defense, but this time, the laser is twice as wide, three times as dense, it was exponentially more powerful than before. The Supercharged Laser snapped the crystal arm clean off. The Behemoth still had enough time to put his right arm between its body and the blast, but the sheer pressure of the laser stream overwhelmed it. Its Clear Fossil armored Titan's fist won't hold out against this kind of intensity for long.

Fortunately, this intensity was also too much for the overheating laser cannon to handle. Before long, the weapons themselves began to buckle, followed swiftly by an internal explosion that instantly shut off the streams. Multiple smaller explosions erupted and Haruto knew the biggest (non apocalyptic superweapon level) guns he had are now trashed. The Valvrave's wings automatically ejected the now deadweight heavy weapons and Haruto moved on to the heavier weapon. Moving his Futouchi to the secondary right arm, the Valvrave's main arm unsheathed the massive two bladed red Nodachi, the Blackrose. As long as the blades are not overcharged by runes, it's just an oversized nodachi, but it can still cut CF armor like paper, so he'll have to be careful.

The Behemoth also buckled. The two severed legs from before flew back and reattached themselves back to their joints. The Behemoth's dismemberment joint was damaged, but the crystalline growth covered it and reinforced the limbs back to full functionality. And his crystal left arm is shattered, but the stump is still sharp enough to be used as a stabbing weapon. With both mechs restored their fighting capability to an extent, the two mechs returned to their brawl, posthaste.

00000000000000

By now, the Com Tower has been restored to full functionality. Unfortunately, it also means that video feed can now be transmitted on open channel without any issues. In other words the intense raging battle between the two Valvraves is now being broadcasted amongst the Moonbase populace. And all they saw are two monsters engaging in a giant robo deathmatch. The video was transmitted allover the base, and everyone was as terrified as they can be. The civilians in particular. They were so terrified now. How can they think, for even a second, that mere rage and numbers can help them prevail against these… these otherworldly beings?

The Dorssian soldiers were just as terrified. If they recall correctly, the Behemoth was the heavy hitter of the five Valvrave team. It alone was responsible for the destruction of over 1/3rd of the Magius forces. And the Red Valvrave… the blood red Valvrave and all its features and capacity for massive destruction. They've even heard rumor that the pilot doesn't need the mech to butcher an entire ship! Both survived the battle against the largest forces ever assembled by men virtually unscathed. And now, in a Valvrave vs. Valvrave battle… seriously… the sheer mind blowing scale of it… it's biblical. There's no way they can get in-between these things and hope to survive.

Kriemhild frowned. She recognized that look. The horror. The realization of how insignificant beings they are. Kriemhild had that same look when she witnessed with her own eyes the unleashed power of a Magius. The fear in the civilians was understandable. So it is quite surprising to her when she saw that same fear, albeit at a far lesser degree, on Ashra and her peers. They looked… confused. "Something wrong?"

Ashra heard the question, but she didn't answer, because she herself wasn't sure of the right answer to that question. So instead, she had to ask her own question. But humans wouldn't know the answer to that. There's only one who knew. Ashra began to float up. "Major Kriemhild, please look after the civilians."

That obligation goes without saying. Kriemhild watched in silence as Ashra ascend up to the sky in pink runes, scaring more of the civilians around her when she zoomed towards the floating Valravn. She landed on its surface, and as if knowing what will happen next, she bent down and knelt on her one knee. And Pino speared before her. Her distressed expression strangely mirror that of Ashra's. Ashra had a feeling her queen already knew her question, but she asked anyway. "Tokishima Haruto… as a Magius… a Novus Magius… he was born… but a few months ago, was he not?"

Pino didn't answer, but her silence speak volumes of her pondering the answer to that same question. "Haruto and his kin are practically younglings less than half a year old, as far as Magius concerned. And yet…"

"And yet… he, and Renbokuji Satomi, and many others… they displayed a level of strength that can only be wielded by Magius vastly older than them by magnitudes of several hundred years." Ashra was somewhat bewildered at her queen's expression. Her cheerful demeanor was gone, replaced by a face of someone in deep contemplation. Apparently, she herself did not expect this. Which is weird, in this case. "My Queen…. You… you didn't mean for it that way? You designed the children… did you not?"

"Not a queen anymore…" Pino muttered her usual response, but it was flat and toneless, a sign that her heart is not in it. No, her mind is pretty much keeping her preoccupied in her world of thought. Wondering, among other things, on what the hell has she turned these kids into? "…that being said… Ashra… I had a favor to ask."

Everyone on the Dorssian Starbase was also watching the same show, and their thoughts as a soldier hardly differ with the civilians. Having secured their base and captured all instigators of the riot, they're now gluing their eyes at the titanic battle between the two super robots. So engrossed they were with the screen… they failed to pay attention to their prisoners.

00000000000000

As the titanic battle on the moon continues, A-Drei arrived with his convoy of damaged and powerless Valvraves. They too were fed the same view on their screens. The same chaos. The same horror. Akira was repulsed at the abomination of a machine that his brother's piloting. "You're… telling me… my brother's… is in that… thing!?"

00000000000000

The Valvrave are flying around, nimbly dodging the Behemoth as it lumber forward, swinging its oversized left fist around, until the Valvrave boosted up and landed right on top of its head and he start bashing the Behemoth's head again and again, coupled with a Variable Vulcan barrage and a point blank volley of the Volc Arms. But somehow, the crystals' colors changed from yellow to orange and gold. It grew denser, its growth are spreading out of control. Niw around 80% of the Valvrave is covered in crystals, increasing the unit's toughness even more. Even the Z-Muramasa was only half as effective as before. Only Blackrose can do some damage. But it was hardly enough to stall the rampaging machine. One swing of the Behemoth's fist, and the Valvrave was sent flying.

The problem is that Haruto doesn't want to kill Satomi. But Satomi's crazed state of mind doesn't share the sentiment. The Valvrave had yet to get back on its feet when the almost fully crystallized Behemoth is on to him again, his crystalline left arm ready to stab. Haruto was at the ready with his Blackrose when the yellow valvrave is but a few steps away from the Red one.

A lighter red colored stream of light changed that.

The laser punctured the giant on the shoulder, completely derailing the monster that was Behemoth to the ground. Haruto blinked and look where that pink laser came from. It was from a single normal Kagerou… normal in every way except there's this pinkish aura of runes enveloping her form. Her right point finger glowed pink, the source of that laser just now. The usually neon green sense nerve glowed pink instead.

Somehow, Haruto just knew who it was. "…Ashra-san?"

"What a disgrace of a fight, Tokishima Haruto."Ashra's voice replied back. "I see you know next to nothing on how Magius fights."

"Well…" Haruto chuckled inbetween pants. "I'm still a youngling who's wet behind my ears."

"I'll give you one piece of advice, then." Ashra calmly stated. "Stop trying NOT to go for the kill."

"Eh?"

"Despite your ferocity, you've been avoiding his cockpit. Don't. He's a Magius, he can survive anything humanly lethal. For now, let's focus on putting him down. We can think of recovery and restoration of whatever's left later." Ashra also prepared herself for a fight.

"I… okay."

00000000000000

And now the apocalyptic battle between the Magius Valvraves continues, with an addition of dancing beams of pink light thrown into the mix. "We have… to do… something…!" Contrary of being relieved, Akira became even more terrified.

"We should… but there's nothing we can do." A-Drei had also received the update from Kriemhild. And it was grim:, all Kagerou pilots are either dead, injured, or incapacitated. Amon Ra was severely damaged, and the Osiris doesn't have the firepower needed to intervene in this kind of fight. Carmilla's torn apart, and the Malefic is out of juice. "We're out of options."

Akira felt more mortified than ever. 'All this happened… because I ran…' She bit her lips and made her resolution.

The powerless Malefic suddenly began to stir to life to the surprise of everyone who think it powerless. The white of the Malefic turned black, a sign that it is once again filled with Runes.

"What? Where did that power came from?" A-Drei didn't know where it comes from, but it's no mystery what the pilkot will do with it. "Renbokuji akira! Before you go, think it through! The Malefic is not designed to survive that kind of clash…!"

But Akira wouldn't listen. The Malefic departed in a trail of purple afterglow straight into that disaster zone.

00000000000000

With Ashra's support, the tide turns against the Behemoth, who's by now is more crystal than a mech. But Ashra's pinpoint laser strikes slowly but surely began to flay those crystals apart.

'Human resourcefulness never ceases to amaze me…' Ashra marveled the performance of this Kagerou. Modeled after the second original valvrave, so she was told, made entirely out of earth materials. As a Magius she never knew what it's like to ride a Valvrave, her elders told her that Valvrave are reserved for royalties such as Pino. She began to understand why.

Humans think the valvrave are just machines. A very powerful humanoid super weapon. And in their ignorant hands, that's all the Valvrave will probably amount to. But when a Magius is in control, it's an amplification device. It allows a Magius to bring out greater amounts power more efficiently and effectively than they ever could using any other devices made by any men. Ashra herself was somewhat amazed. With little to no instruction at all from Pino, she was already able to move this faux-Valvrave as she wills. Pino said it's a deep rooted connection that span generations, hailing back to the time when the first Magius don their first Valvrave. Not even a Kisrchbaum could replicate the way a Valvrave can bring out the true power of a Magius to its maximum potential. This was proven with how easily she can replicate her signature finger laser technique with the Kagerou to a vastly more devastating effect, something she failed to do when she used the bulkier Dorssian mech, not even when they concentrated Magius tech on it.

The Kagerou can jump, fly, somersault, it can move with flexibility and speed far surpassing its original specification with a true Magius on board. While the Valvrave renewed its assault on the reeling behemoth, the Ashra Kagerou continued to rain destruction from the tip of her fingers. Soon, the two Magius mech began to outpace the Behemoth's crystal regeneration speed, dealing damage faster than the Crystal can regenerate it. Haruto faltered a moment, but Ashra pushed on. 'Final blow!' She sent forth her most intense laser yet. At first using only one finger, and then she used all fingers, creating a significantly larger and far more intense beam of laser.

But push a wounded animal to the corner, and they'll grew even fiercer. In a berserk charge, the behemoth suddenly sprang out and rushed towards the pinkish Kagerou. Ashra was caught off guard, she didn't expect this. She think of intensifying her laser until…

This time, it's her turn to be shocked by an unexpected rescue. One can also add she was rescued the same way she had unexpectedly rescued many others: by a stream of a laser beam, of dark and red color, and far less refined than hers with jagged stream.

And it came from the Valvrave's left hand beneath the Power claw, judging by the way his palm are smoldering with heat. "Ah… it came out?"

Ashra's eyes widened in disbelief. "Tokishima… Haruto…?"

"Well… I was just… I wasn't even sure how… I mean… I wanted to use my gatling gun, and then I thought of your laser finger and wondered if I can use it too, and… well…" Haruto flabbergasted. He didn't expect it to happen either.

'He… he copied me… just like that…?' Ashra gaped. "Less talk, more fighting! If you can do it, than focus your fire on the Behemoth! Push him back!"

"R… Right!" Haruto concentrated again, and this time, it came out much easier when he knew what he's doing. A brief charge of runes coruscated between the fingers of his left arm and the power talons over it before a massive and thick red and black laser burst forth from the palm of his hand.

Ashra also shelved her question for the moment and fired her rune laser from her palm as well. The two laser streams joined and pushed the Behemoth back. The crystals began to break and snap, revealing the original shape of the Behemoth in full. Its heat fins are burning! Its armor began to melt!

"We're going to vaporize all its limbs. After that, you went for the head and pluck out its cockpit! That'll shut off the behemoth's power source!"

"A… right…!" Haruto nodded as he also struggled to keep an eye on his heat gauge. This laser blast technique increases his heat at incredible rate… something to look out for in the future. The laser beams began to separate and focus more on disabling rather than penetrating. "Yosh… just keep it up like this…"

"STOOOOPP!"

A scream blared allover their coms. Haruto thankfully recognized that voice as Akira's voice. "ASHRA-SAN! CEASE FIRE!"

Haruto and Ashra cut off their lasers just in time as the Malefic landed right between the two attacking Valvrave and the reeling Behemoth. "STOP!" It took everything she had to scream. "Stop! Hurting! My… Brother!"

"Akira…?"

00000000000000

"Akira-chan!" Shoko couldn't hide her happiness when she saw her friend is alive and well.

"Akira… tee… as in, the girl who bit you?" Billy asked.

But Shoko no longer cared about that small bite. Compared to what she went through today, it was nothing.

"S… SAY THAT AGAIN!?" Suddenly, everyone was distracted by a roar from Kriemhild. She's speaking with someone on her radio. It was from her troopers stationed in the Dorssian Starbase.

00000000000000

"We have a rogue bird in motion! I repeat, we have a rogue bird in motion!" The trooper repeated in a roar over the sound of a skirmish occurring at the base. "A bunch of Arus soldiers managed to escape. We can deal with them with them with a jiffy but some of them managed to escape with an Ideal! That Ideal is carrying a GIGATON atomic bomb we haven't had time to dismantle! Payload can wipe out an entire city!"

00000000000000

"A SUPER NUCLEAR BOMB!?" Shoko was clearly less than pleased that there's something that destructive stored away without her knowledge. "AND YOU WERE WAITING UNTIL NOW TO TELL ME THIS, WHY!?"

"The Gigaton nuclear bombs were prepared as last resort measure against the Valvrave, in… an unlikely case they were ever being used against us." Kriemhild admitted. "For obvious reasons, we can't tell the pilots about it. Of course, we took great care and followed every standard procedure and safety protocols… The nuclear warheads were disassembled: inert and unweaponized."

"During the riot, Arus soldiers found the bombs…" Billy followed suit. "We helped re-weaponize the warheads. They even had us modify the warheads, amplifying its destructive power beyond its regulated safety level. We helped them load the bomb to an Ideal."

"Which we don't have time to dismantle, given all this chaos!" Kriemhild analyzed the situation. "What those idiots didn't realize is, with that sort of power yield, if they're going to use that to blast the Valvraves, at this distance it'll vaporize US as well!"

"They have to be warned! RIGHT THE HELL NOW!"

00000000000000

Haruto and Ashra couldn't make their move. The Behemoth is still operational, and by all indications, he's far from beaten. If they don't disable it now, the Behemoth will just get back up again. And neither the Valvrave nor Kagerous can fight for much longer. But they can't do it with the Malefic stood between them and the Behemoth. Haruto has a different opinion though. "Ashra… let's leave it to Akira this time."

Ashra frowned. "She barely had any runes. What can she do…?"

"Just trust her." Haruto nodded. "Akira. Go!"

Akira noticed that Haruto is giving her a chance. And she had no intention to squander it. The Malefic turned to the Behemoth. The monstrous Valvrave is still struggling to get back up, its crystalline growth is still bursting uncontrollably. But it looks like the actual Valvrave that formed the core couldn't keep up anymore and it's at its absolute limits. Somewhere in this shattered wreck, her brother was trapped.

In a bold decision, the Malefic slammed the Behemoth to the ground, locking the berserk Valvrave in place. And while they're locked like that, Akira opened the cockpit and jumped out into open space, floating slowly and surely towards the still twitching Behemoth. Miraculously she managed to land right where the cockpit should be, the small section beneath the neck. But the entrance was covered in crystal. For a moment, Akira was confused on what she should do. There's no console, no port to hack… the only thing she can do now is…

Thump.

"Iteee…!" Akira moaned as she just punched the crystalline wall with her fragile fist. That's about all she can think of. Gritting her teeth, she sucked it up and continued punching futilely against the crystal wall. Her thought of her brother numb the pain on her petite fingers. 'Onii-chan…' Thump! 'Onii-chan!' Thump! 'ONII-CHAN!' THUMP! But alas, she inflicted more damage to her fingers. In desperation, Akira summoned what little strength she had left and sent one last futile punch… THUMP! …to no avail. The crystals remained inviolate…

Please move aside for a moment.

Akira jerked when she heard a sound in her head. Guided by some homing instinct, she turned and looked back… but she found only her violet Valvrave staring back at her.

Move aside.

For some reason, Akira moved away as instructed, and the Malefic suddenly fired her Variable Vulcans at the crystal. The obstruction was easily broken apart, and the cockpit entrance can be accessed, at last.

Go. Akira-chan.

Akira gaped questioningly, but she had no time to ponder if her Valvrave really just talked to her or she's gone crazy. Akira quickly moved to the cockpit and opened it, only to be welcomed by a chaotic mess of technology barring her way. But after everything, she'll be damned if she let a bunch of jumbled cables stop her now. With a roar, Akira plunged in, tearing through cables as she dived in deeper and deeper. She crushed circuits, rip open wirings, cut cables, shattered monitors and drivers… they're all in the way. None of them matters. All she wants to see is her pitifully stupid and pathetic of a brother!

Finally, after one last bat, she rid herself of one last layer of wires… and there she saw him.

Curling like a ball amidst the obliterated cockpit was her brother. He sat there in the corner, various razor sharp crystals protruding in towards him, threatening to stab him to death if he even took a step away from there. Blank eyed, scared and lost. A broken and shattered shell of a dignified man he tried to become. She can hear him whispering her name under his breath in a feverish pitch to his knees. "Akira… Where are you? Akira… Where are you?" He looked… just like her. Just like her every time she retreated into her shell.

Suddenly, a wave of realization struck her, and a sad smile found its way to her lips. After all these years, she finally realized… they are siblings. She's his sister, and he's her brother. Stupid, pathetic, weakling and coward of a brother who abandoned her to be bullied during their childhood… and he never stopped punishing himself after all these years. "…and so you've always looked after me, ever since… were you trying to make up for that…?" Akira stepped into the cockpit and approached her brother. "That's enough already." Akira stretched out her arms and placed it over her brother. When he felt the caress of her frail fingers, Satomi stopped muttering. "I… I forgive you."

And finally, life returned to Satomi's eyes, along with the realization that he's in her sister's arms. "A… Akira…?"

"Onii-chan." Akira smiled.

Satomi gasped when he heard his sister called him Onii-chan… for the first time ever in years. "A… Akira!" Tears formed on his eyes and he found the strength to hug her back.

And with the return of Satomi's sanity, the Behemoth also returned back to its former self. Well, not completely. For one thing, the crystalline growth had yet to disappear, but they've stopped growing.

Haruto sighed in relief when he saw Akira climbed out of the Behemoth's cockpit, with a very much alive and sane Satomi in tow.

Satomi looked at the ransacked Valvrave and understood he did this. "Tokishima…"

"Glad to hear your voice again, Renbokuji-senpai." Haruto smiled.

"I'm so sorry. I…"

"We're both sorry." Akira suddenly spoke. She gently tucked Satomi's shoulder. "My brother and I had been nothing but trouble." She bent her head down. Satomi flabbergasted but he also followed her sister's example and bow down in apology.

Haruto smiled in relief. Now they only had the civilians to worry about-

PEEP! PEEP!

No sooner than he thought that, a transmission arrived from Shoko. "Shoko?"

"HARUTO! NUCLEAR! INCOMING!" She flabbergasted in his ears, so desperate she was to pass the word. But she had said all the essential message.

"Nuclear!?" They quickly looked around, and true enough, an Ideal is flying towards them, carrying the ominous of packages, with nuclear hazard symbol on it.

The pilot, an Arus Soldier pushed by today's events beyond the limits of his sanity growled. "Die you monsters!" And before any of them can react, the Ideal launched the package and the missile was launched towards them.

Haruto think quickly. "Shoko! Permission to use the beast mode! I'm going to use the Blackrose to suck it into the blackhole!"

"Permission grant-"

"NO!" Pino's screech barged in their communication before Shoko could finish.

"Pino, the Nuclear is going to destroy the city as well if we don't-"

"The Valvrave suffered critical damage over 75.8% of its systems!" Pino was monitoring the body schematics of the Valvrave within the Valravn's cyberspace. So many of its parts are colored in the red of danger, the rest are in yellow warning. "As you are now, the Valvrave won't survive the backlash of firing a single shot!"

"If I don't do this, the Moonbase will be-"

"If the Valvrave is destroyed while Blackrose is in effect, nothing will control the emerging Blackhole! It will continue to expand and expand, and the whole moon, no, the whole SOLAR SYSTEM will be swallowed by it!"

"Then… THEN WHAT SHOULD WE DO!?" Haruto roared.

A-Drei answered that question when his Kisrchbaum roared over their heads. He's heading straight towards the missile.

"A-DREI!" Kriemhild screeched in panic. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"

"The only thing I can do." A-Drei answered calmly. "I'm going to catch that thing and bring it as far away from here as possible. Then I'll detonate it safely away from the base."

"YOU'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO ESCAPE ITS BLAST RADIUS! DON'T DO IT!"

"It's the only way!" A-Drei gripped his controllers tight. "My country built this thing. It is only proper that I dispose of it."

Akira cringed as she felt something just cracked in her chest. "No…"

All this does not escape Satomi's notice. He smiled. 'Before I knew it, my sister had grown… she became so strong…' Satomi nodded and made his decision. He suddenly pushed Akira towards the Malefic, much to her surprise.

"Onii… chan…?" Suddenly, Akira felt a premonition of something utterly terrible. "Onii… chan…!?"

"Tokishima. Takahi. Everyone." Satomi smiled. "Look after my sister, will you?"

And before anyone can stop him, Satomi jumped into the Behemoth and once again the yellow giant rise up to its feet. Somehow, even though the cockpit has been devastated, Satomi found that he can control the behemoth using his thoughts. He think it, it does it. The Behemoth shed some of the yellow crystals that get in the way, and the Behemoth rise up and zoomed towards the missile at incredible speed in a trail of yellow hardlight.

"ONII-CHAN!" Akira cried.

Upon seeing the Behemoth rise up, the crowd originally thought the worse, but then, Raizo and Yusuke quickly realized something. They realized what Satomi intends to do with their Behemoth. "That guy… he's…"

The Behemoth quickly overtake A-Drei's Kirschbaum, much to the Dorssian soldier's surprise. "Renbokuji Satomi…!? What are you doing!?"

"I'm stopping that nuke. You go back! Your unit won't survive that blast, but this thing might!"

"YOU IDIOT!" A-Drei roared. "Your army cannot afford to be short ONE valvrave off the field-!"

"I know." Satomi smiled. "But you'll be fine. My… Sister… will protect you." And with that, the Behemoth fired once on the Kisrchbaum, immediately disabling it and ended its flight right then and there. The Behemoth sped towards the missile, leaving the disabled Kirschbaum behind.

The Behemoth finally reached the missile and grabbed the warhead. He carefully handled the missile with care: not too strong so that it won't ignite the missile, but not too weak so that he can redirect it. The Titan's fists also detached and grabbed the missile at various parts. Finally, with one massive thrust, the Behemoth pushed the missile away high up. And higher still. The missile has been redirected, now it's just the matter of pushing his machine as far as possible. The thrusters burst out, generating an even larger boost.

As it zoomed further and further out of sight and reach, something began to happen. The crystal growth allover its body shed to particles that sparkle in the dark void of space. The black color of the Valvrave began to shed bit by bit… revealing a golden shine underneath. The Behemoth itself also glowed, shining brightly like a newborn star in space. A star whose radiance can be seen by everyone, and none who looked at it did not marvel at its beauty.

And finally, the time has come.

One jolt of electricity on the warhead…

Satomi smiled in content.

A blinding explosion erupted and engulfed the space. The dark skies were filled light. There was no noise. No sound. It was quiet. And silent. And finally, just as silently, the light faded…

And then there's only nothingness…

00000000000000

The Valvraves finally returned back into the Starbase, where, as the pilots walked out the cockpit dispirited and full of sorrow, they saw the gathered crowd of much calmer but still shaken colonists, with Billy and Shoko at the fore.

Haruto didn't say anything. He just gently pushed a miserable looking Akira to the front. Akira timidly obeyed and there she stood, face to face with Shoko.

Silence followed for quite some time, but finally, it was Akira who started. "Shoko… chan… s… s…"

But in the end, Shoko won't let her finish. She just took a step forward and hugged the poor girl in her arms. They need not say anything. They've already reached a point past that.

And finally, Akira can do nothing but to cry. And she just cried and cried into Shoko's chest. Shoko didn't know what to say, but she felt it's best she just tightened her hug on her.

The colonists saw the crying girl, and suddenly, they no longer see a monster. All they see is a poor little girl who just lost her brother. The brother who had saved their lives. All their lives. Everyone saw that blast radius. If the missile had struck, it would've obliterated the Moonbase as well, killing them all. After everything, they're more tired than scared. Tired in trying to find what to believe.

Haruto can see their feelings in their expression as clear as day. "I'm not going to ask… what you've done." Haruto started. "I'm just going to ask now… what will you do? What do you want to do?"

Billy stood as a representation of the Colonist. "We… we just want the truth. We… we saw you… and we see gods walking among us. We saw our own insignificance and we…"

"Gods… men…" Haruto shrugged. "Many times now… everyone asked me to choose between Gods or Men. I didn't know the answer then. And it was most difficult because I can't ask anybody else. I'm a being that stand between man and god, I'm both of them, but I'm neither. I'm the only one who can answer that. I was a fool to think that." Haruto sorrowfully gazed at the remnants of the Behemoth in space, a few glimmers of golden light in the sky. "Today a man gave me the answer to that question. Men or Magius… he taught me that it was a false division. He showed me, showed us all what truly mattered: Life."

And then, Haruto symbolically stand between Billy and Ashra. "This is where we stand. This is how we'll do things. This is the way a man's wisdom had showed us. We will protect humanity. We will help the Magius keep their hunger at bay so that neither of you will be consumed by it. That is how we will become a bridge between our two worlds; in the hope it will one day our worlds will truly become one."

Billy shrugged. "But you didn't even know how to get there."

"No." Haruto smiled. "But that won't stop us from trying. After all, we have an eternity to spare."

Billy nodded. The Colonists also understands. Yes, everything is far from solved. And new troubles will continue rise up in the future. But one cannot solve it alone. One does not have to solve it alone.

Haruto turned to Ashra, whose expression showed she's in deep contemplation. "William."

"Excuse me?"

"A soldier I met when I was a nurse during World War 2. I don't know what he sees in me, but he came to me every time he's not on a mission. We talked a lot. One day, a stray cannon shell flew at me. I'm a Magius, I knew I'll survive that… but… suddenly he just appeared and pushed me out of the way." Ashra's flat expression formed the closest thing she can manage to a smile. "Afterwards… I… I asked him why he did that… he never answered. He died in my arms with a smile on his face. I never understood why." She turned to Haruto and then to Akira, still sobbing in Shoko's arms. "…but now… I think I'm beginning to understand."

"This path you take is a thorny road full of suffering." Ashra nodded. "But then again… the right thing is very rarely what's easy."

Haruto smiled and gestured Billy to come closer as well. Billy and Ashra looked at each other, and then, the two finally stretched out their hands and shake it in peace.

But then, no sooner than this one problem was solved, another arises right off the bat when the alarm sounded. Their radar detected an object flying towards them and entered their perimeter without permission.

"Unidentified object approaching our perimeter at incredible speed!"

"What is it? A Kisrchbaum?"

"No. It's too small… and this energy readings… it's off the chart! It's like…" The radar officer rubbed his eyes to checked he didn't misread. "It's like a… Valvrave!"

"Eh!?" The Valvrave pilots twitched.

00000000000000

In the end, the Valvrave flew out, followed by the Valravn and a few of the remaining Kagerous piloted by Novus Magius to intercept said unidentified object.

Soon, the object closed the distance, allowing them to get a better view of the said object.

First glance… it's a silver and gold mech of humanoid shape. But as they observe its features, they began to notice many unusual characteristics. There are multi limbed protrusions extending down its shoulder pads, and a single arm had 10 fingers instead of five. The leg had multiple joints, and what looked like an actual fully functional arms holding a pair of scimitars that serve as decorations. But the most shocking feature was its main body. It bear a striking resemblance… no… not just some passing resemblance. It really is…

"A… Valvrave?" Takahi gasped.

"One that we don't know?"

But there are two people who already knew what it is. Firstly, the Magius who had personal experience with it. "That's… one of the original Valvrave… Dainslev!" A smile formed on Pino's lips. Said Valvrave was built by the Magius for the personal use of one person. "Attlach!"

Haruto knew this unit, for this is the Valvrave who's responsible for his very late arrival. "What are you doing here!?"

"I told you." Cain replied. "I want to see what you do."

"We lost a friend today, thanks to your meddling. Are you happy now?"

"Happy? Quite the opposite." Cain shrugged. "We just lost a powerful child today. A child who could've been a great asset to the cause."

"Whose cause? Yours?"

"No." And then, to the shock of everyone, the Dainslev knelt down. Its cockpit opened, and then, Cain ascended out of the cockpit.

Everyone wondered what the one eyed man is up to…

"I did not come to usurp the king." And then, mimicking his Valvrave, Cain Dressel bent his knee and knelt down. "I came here to pledge my allegiance to your cause."

00000000000000

Saki received the news on her phone that all is well and the day is saved. In part, she's happy that Haruto managed to solve this wisely. The other part, she need to prepare her explanation for taking such a huge risk, freeing the prisoners like that. She's glad it all ends well. But now, she's closing in on the end of her own personal puzzle, and she's glad of the solitude. She only prays that she's mistaken and all that is just one big nightmare.

The soldier's memory lead her to that dark alleyway. She remembered they were gathered here, and that they have room upstairs on the building next to her. She climbed the stairs of said building and she arrived at that door. The exact same one she saw in her dreams… vision… whatever. She opened that door, and the stench of man fluid assaulted her senses.

And in that instant, like a tide of flash flood, memories she didn't remember making exploded in her mind. Of bodies writhing and cries of carnal pleasure. All done by her hand. "NO!" She screeched loudly as her eyes turned green and her Magius mark shined brightly. Almost manic, Saki ran away as fast as her feet can carry her. Away from that room, away from that god forsaken memories.

Out of that wretched building in a heartbeat, Saki fell on her knees, crying. The memories remained imprinted in her head she felt so nauseated that she hurled. "NO!" She banged the ground. "NO! NO! NO!" She keeps banging them in denial. "NO! It can't be! It's impossible! How could I… How…"

"Tee-hee-hee…"

Saki blinked. Did someone just laugh at her woes!? She rose up in anger at where the laughter came. It was the darkest corner of that alley, but she could barely make out a shape. A form. A person. A girl. Staring at her. "Who's there?"

The figure chortled as an answer.

"I'm in no mood to play games!" The hell she is. Saki gritted her teeth in anger as her markings grew brighter, corresponding to her flaring anger. "Show your face before I make you!"

The figure made her move to comply with that order. But as she moved in the darkness, markings began to appear on her being.

Markings in shape and form that Saki would know all too well. "W… What…?"

And as the girl crept out of the shadow and into the light, Saki stare wide eyed in disbelief…

…for she is staring at another Rukino Saki, stark naked, but identical to her in every way, down to the exact same Magius markings…

Except that while the latter is smiling and chortling, the other one screamed in rage: "WHO ARE YOU!?"

00000000000000

00000000000000

This is unedited. So there may well be revisions in the future. Enjoy. Oh, I'd like to run a poll. I'm still thinking on the next step, and I'm in a bit of a quandary: Which direction should the New Jiorians take first: Descend to earth or ascend to deep space?

The situation: most of the Valvraves are heavily damaged. With limited resources, they can only fix some and left the others behind to undergo further repairs. And as such, one can only choose one mission and the other had to wait. Now the options are:

If they descend to Earth…

Mission: help Dorssian Revolutionaries shook off the Council's occupation, rescue the Sakimori high remaining families.

Team: Haruto, Cain, Kyuuma and Aina, and Takahi.

What will happen: the activation of the Red Valvrave's strongest form: Apocalypse Mode.

If they ascend to Deep Space…

Mission: Liberate a New Jior Dyson Sphere under attack by Arus fleet, find information regarding Jeffrey's whereabouts because (spoiler) he had a certain someone in custody. (Maybe not so much of a spoiler)

Team: Haruto, Cain, Yusuke and Raizo, and Akira

What will happen: the awakening of the last Valvrave, Unit 02, the Tekka.

Choosing one will only slightly affect the other. In that the damaged Valvraves will be fully repaired by the time the first mission is done, and the New Jior can enter the next mission with full force. The consequence being, the opposition will also have more time to build up strength, resulting in a harder fight on the second choice. It won't change the story or the ending only the order of who get their asses kicked the hardest.

00000000000000

00000000000000