Chapter 46: Unleashed

-REGENCY ACADEMY EXTERIOR WEST-

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"Why…?"

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"Why did I… Do that…?"

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Ginger muttered something.

"J-Jonathen?"

Jonathen bent over forwards, an instinctual reaction to the shot of agony that was burning hot in his gut. His face fell onto Jessica's shoulder, and she shrugged him off. He looked up, and their eyes met for a brief moment. She looked at him with the most contemptuous look that anyone had ever given him in his life. Anger so deep-seated, so ingrained that nothing short of lethal violence could quench it for even a moment.

He didn't understand what he had done. As he fell over into her, she pulled out her knife and stabbed him a few more times for good measure.

"I wasn't aiming for you… But it'll do…"

Jessica twisted the knife on that last, deepest cut. She put so much torque on it that it shattered halfway down the blade, leaving a gnarled chunk of broken glass inside of the wound, and three to five more that were simply open and bleeding. The knife wasn't clean. It wasn't flat or smooth. It was jagged and misshapen. The wounds it left were not simple slits, they were nasty, open gashes with rough edges.

Jessica pushed into Jonathen's abdomen so hard with that last stab that he fell backwards instead of forwards.

"Oh my god! Jonathen!" Ginger shrieked, coming to life. She lunged upwards and caught him underneath the arms, guiding him down gently into her lap. He gurgled and coughed all the way down. Blood wasn't just haemorrhaging out of his wounds, it was pouring out of his mouth like a spout.

Jessica observed the scene. She was acting so protective even though she had one foot in the grave herself. It sickened her. It sickened her because… Because it reminded her of something.

What…

What did it remind her of?

With a sickening look of mental strain on her face, Jessica collapsed aswell, running headfirst into the thick, impenetrable door of her own mental vault.

"I'm-"

Jonathen took a moment to clear his throat of bloody bile and continued to weakly talk.

"I'm sorry…"

"It's okay! It's okay!" Ginger repeated insistently. "I can fix it, see?" She furrowed her brow, focusing so much effort that a vein started to pop out of her forehead. Nothing happened. No matter how much she tried, her quirk didn't have a drop of juice left.

"It… It's okay… It's not your fault…" Jonathen said, wincing constantly. The pain was immense and unending. His abdomen felt like it was on fire and burning from the inside out. He wasn't sure how long he had left until he had bled too much to be recoverable. At least the broken glass wasn't bothering him anymore. Ginger tried her best not to move him around, but there was nothing she could do for him.

When they were fighting Jessica, they had been so wasteful. Ginger turned her quirk on and hadn't turned it off until the fighting was done, and the level of enhancement it was under by the end…

She had built up a deep, deep deficit. That extra power came at a steeper resource cost, and when she got knocked back down to square one in terms of power, she had no hopes of paying that back. It's the same reason her quirk stopped working at the end of the royale.

Jonathen and Ginger, having been one, intuitively understood this. Ginger still tried. Every time she failed, it simply made everything a hundred times worse. But she wouldn't stop. She thought she might break her own fingers or bite off her own tongue to get just a little bit of energy, but that wouldn't cut it by far.

"If this… If this was anyone's fault… It was my fault… Ginger… So you shouldn't… Blame yourself… My quirk was the one that failed first… I jumped infront of that knife because I wanted to… This is just something that happens to heroes… Right?"

"But… But…" Ginger was obviously holding back tears. "But I promised…"

Jonathen looked up at her from his reclining position. It was kinda sick to say, but there was a weird feeling of peace that was coming over him. The pain was fading into a comfortable numbness, and while previously he'd felt cold, there was a wonderful sense of warmth now. Maybe it was coming from her, or maybe his body was starting to fail and his senses were breaking down. Ginger had started bawling. Fat, wet tears were streaming down her face and dripping off of her chin like rain.

He just stared at her, a completely neutral expression on his face.

"I don't give a shit about that..."

"Y-Y-You…-?"

"You shouldn't give… Much of a shit about me either… I mean… What did I do to deserve it? I was a crappy person… and by all objective accounts… I was a failure too… So why don't you just… Get out of here…"

"What did you s-s-say?" Ginger was ugly crying now. It thundered overhead. A little drop of water came down and picked up a few particles of glass as it sunk into the dirt. The moon was hidden behind a black cloud.

"You need to run… And you need to run now… You know she's going to get back up… I know she's going to get back up… So the least you could do for me… Is not have it be in vain… And get out of here with your life… You would use it way better than I would anyway…"

Jonathen… Didn't want her to go, but it was only for a selfish reason. He didn't want to die alone. That was it. Ginger… Started laughing. That caught Jonathen off guard. His face stirred, but he didn't have the strength left to react really.

"I'm not going anywhere," she smiled. Despite the fact that her face was red and stained with tears, it seemed genuine. "I don't even think I can stand up, let alone walk. And even if I could… I can't just leave you here."

"You idiot…" Jonathen said, the sides of his lips curling up the slightest amount. Crap. His eyes were getting a little wet now. Did he have to embarrass himself one more time on the way out?

Ginger grabbed him hard by the shoulders, the fabric of his clothes bunching up in her hands. It would probably hurt if Jonathen could feel anything at all.

"But I promise… And I know I broke the last one… But this time I really promise…"

"You... don't have to-"

"I promise that I'll do something, or something will happen. Someone will come… I don't know… But I promise that it won't have been for nothing… Ok?"

Jonathen nodded.

"Hey, Ginger...?" He said.

"Y-yes...?"

"Thanks for being my friend."

A cold breeze blew through Jonathen's hair. The rain came down basically all at once, the sound of a thousand raindrops hitting the ground making the perfect white noise. Despite all of the water which was running down Ginger's face already, she was obviously crying again.

She unleashed a primal, morose wail.

-REGENCY ACADEMY: CLASSROOM OVERLOOKING WEST EXTERIOR-

Gawain didn't quite understand what he was looking at, at first. The first time someone sees something like that, they usually need a lot of time to process it. Ginger seemed to be having trouble with it herself, despite being right up in the middle of it all.

Rain was hitting the window pane hard, making it rattle in its beaten and bent frame. The droplets on the window only blurred everything outside even further. Gawain had never been one for denial, though. He knew what had just happened. A part of him had known as soon as their fusion had split apart.

His classmate had just been killed right infront of his face.

Ruban was laughing like a maniac. She pressed Gawain's face right up against the glass. He had actually hoped. He had actually… trusted… That they might be able to do it. He had done nothing but make an idiot of himself. He was a mockery of his family name.

"Hahaha! What did I tell you, Williams? What did I tell you? You never stood a fucking chance. Look at it! But don't worry, that won't be you. You're used to special treatment, so we have something very special in store for you. Just wait until you see. Just wait!"

He was absolutely livid. Underneath his bindings, the veins in his neck were bursting from pure rage. His teeth were grinding themselves into dust. Such was the pressure that his gums started to bleed. How dare you. How dare you. How dare you. How do you have the fucking gall to do such a thing? Beating him was one thing. Killing his useless classmates was one thing. Making a fool out of him was another thing entirely.

Gawain wondered, why was it that he was holding back on these people?

Why did he hold back in the royale?

What was it that was stopping him from letting loose?

Superiority?

Yes… Maybe that was it… Maybe he thought that he was so much better than then that he didn't need to go all out. That such a thing was for undignified barbarians. Yes… That sounded about right. Well. He'd learned his lesson. Gawain's mind had changed. From now on, he knew that there was only one way to display his objective superiority. Use it. Show no restraint. They. Did. Not. Deserve. Mercy.

Gawain decided to let loose.

He turned his mind inwards and returned to the black, tranquil ocean. He sunk down into the bottom, willingly this time. He sunk until he found Jormungandr, still held to the ocean floor where he had left it during the royale. Collared and chained.

"Hello, Jormungandr."

"Still talking to me, are you? I thought we gathered that I was a mindless force without the ability to think or communicate and that you were just talking to yourself when you came here."

"Don't get snarky with me. You're a visualisation technique. Like how building a mind palace helps with your memory, building you helps me to control you."

"Ah, but if I'm you, that means I know everything that you know, and I know that you didn't come down here to 'assert control' or anything like last time. You've decided to let me go, haven't you?"

"..."

"Well?"

"Yes."

"Oh, a thousand gratitudes milord. I'm forever in your debt."

Gawain half walked and half swam in a dream-like slow-motion over to Jormungandr's body. Lifting one airy, light hand, he unfasted a single buckle that tied the creature down. Immediately, it snapped. Jormungandr arched its back. So long held down. So long without eating its fill. It was eagre to get out. The rest of these bindings? They were of no concern.

The beast flexed.

In Gawain's mind, chains broke. Collars snapped at the buckle. The infinitely deep and dark lake whose weight Gawain used to bury the Jormungandr stirred until tidal waves began to crash against each other. The boy's mental form started to get lifted away as he relinquished control. It was expelling him. As it rose and bubbled to the surface, the sea of Gawain's mind turned from black to burgundy red.

Gawain allowed himself to lose consciousness.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, Ruban watched her hostage as his eyes glazed over. For a second, she thought that he had died aswell. Committed suicide by swallowing his own tongue? Maybe he just bled out. But no. There was something very much alive about the boy. The thing around his neck. The one that Ruban had put so much effort into neutralizing and containing. That looked very much alive because it was freaking out.

It bristled in all direction, expanding and contracting wildly. It was fighting to get loose. Ruban saw her ribbons strain and almost break. Some of them were eaten through. In a panicked rush, Ruban wound more ribbon around it. But trying to hold back this thing with just ribbons was like trying to contain an explosion with rubber bands. It grew. And grew. And grew. And grew.

It grew until the entire half of the room that it had been occupying was full of its wine-dark body. Until Ruban had been pressed into a corner by it. It roared and burned. Jaws full of black teeth and tentacles covered in spikes and talons. It looked like it was going to kill her. Pick her up in its teeth and trash her around until she was nothing but a mouthful of bloody scraps, and then swallow.

The hostages too. It spared them no thought. Did Gawain even recall where he was? Did he recall the situation?

"Stop!" Screamed Ruban, holding a blade to one of her hostage's throats. She dragged it across, cutting in only a millimetre. The student whimpered, but Gawain didn't even react. It was like he couldn't even see what was happening. Ruban put a wall of hostages between her and the expanding mass of darkness, and it didn't slow down in the slightest.

Get away... She had to get away...

She cut into the wall behind her. She would slip out through there. As she turned and ran for the opening she made, something grabbed her foot. She tried to pull herself along with her ribbons, but whatever it was that had her was pulling her harder. Her foot burned like it was being dipped in acid. The monster sunk its teeth into her, and it loomed overhead.

It finally filled the room in its entirety, making the windows bulge outwards in the frames and warping the door. Even now, it didn't show signs of stopping. It could fill the entire building, as far as Ruban knew. And it was pulling her in. She screamed.

-REGENCY ACADEMY EXTERIOR WEST-

The rain was coming down hard on the girl. Ginger did not have much time to grieve. The situation demanded her attention. The late Jonathen's prediction was of course correct. It had just come to pass. Jessica was not done for yet. Those injuries would not be sufficient to finish her off. But that was something anyone could have predicted.

"I just felt it…" She smiled. While she had a displeased scowl on her face when she had gone down, now her euphoric expression had returned in full force. The edges of her lips split open in a gash that ran all the way underneath the ears and around the back of the head for a few centimetres. "I felt a little sick before… watching you two cling to each other sentimentally… And something about that made me feel ill… But then I felt his heart run out of blood to keep pumping and stop… And now I see one dead hero clinging to another… and that makes me very happy…"

The snow-like carpet of broken glass on the ground started to rise. It was attracted to Jessica almost magnetically. It gathered into a whirlwind around her, and like a cloud of dust in a nebula sparking a star, a glow came from within.

"Bundle of Joy."

The construction started at the feet and moved up remarkably quickly. With each blast of twinkling coloured light, the titan was put back together a little more. Ginger had hardly blinked before she was staring it down again. Jessica's baby had returned. Just as huge and lethal as before.

Now it was her turn to die. Ginger smiled and closed her eyes. Her one consolation, something with as much power as that would have to kill her quickly.

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Something exploded. A huge amount of rubble had just been shifted right behind her. Sections of the wall, pieces of furniture and shards of glass from windows began to rain down on the battlefield. There was a deafening screeching sound. Something big, something equally big to Jessica's colossus, touched down on either side of her.

It made a constant hissing, bubbling noise. As if it produced a constant vacuum just being there. Like it was sucking in all of the air and the rain and erasing it. It kinda sounded like the crackling of a raging inferno. Ginger opened her eyes and saw it. It was a monster. A tangled worm-like beast of burgundy energy and inconsistent form. On countless black claws, it balanced itself. With a long neck and featureless, lizard-like head, it craned around and sniffed blindly for prey. Hanging from its neck like a tag from a collar was the anaemic, limp body of Gawain Williams. He didn't look conscious.

"What... the hell... are you supposed to be...?" Jessica asked, moving closer. Jormungandr entered the construct's aura. Microscopic glass ripped into it at speeds faster than the eye could see. It retracted like a hand being held over an open flame. Jessica pressed on, fighting the thing back. How simple. Jormungandr flared up and opened its countless mouths, and moved into Jessica's aura.

Very soon, Jessica didn't have an aura at all.

The monster ate it.

The colossus raised one of its hands and smashed it down onto the leviathan's head. The blow was so strong as to take out a chunk of Jormungandr. A clean core which soon dissipated like a wisp of flame. Jormungandr reared as if it felt pain. Gawain seemed to cringe as if suddenly wracked with agony, but only Ginger could see that.

What Jessica saw was that the monster had filled the hole that she left almost effortlessly. It didn't have a body to damage. It was completely formless. Jessica cut loose on the beast, unleashing a crushing barrage of punches into it. She pounded it into the ground relentlessly, like she was trying to bury it or something. Jormungandr took the blows without so much as making a sound. The monster produced a claw from its flank. It was a blade that was as thin as a shadow. And it cut.

SLASH.

The blade went through the colossus' legs and cut the tops off of trees all the way back to the border of the grounds. Jessica noticed her titan was tipping to the side too late to halt its momentum, and it crashed into the earth, leaving a sizeable crater. Jormungandr mounted the glass construct. Its most slight touch ate away at the surface.

Jessica looked up at its elongated, featureless head. It twisted and changed shape like a lava lamp. Occasionally, something that looked like teeth or eyes would appear and be gone just as quickly. Looking at it was like finding patterns in TV static or the shapes of storm clouds. It opened its mouth and screamed hungrily at her.

She was afraid. She remembered.

TO BE CONTINUED

Just a short little chapter this week everybody. Anyway, I hope that enough happened for it to be interesting in any case. It's looking like "arc finishes in two to three chapters" is turning into "three chapters" after all. Look forward to them, and while you are, let me know what you thought of this chapter by telling me in the reviews!

And as always, thank you for reading. I'll see you in the next one!