Hibiki launched her fists with propellants against the creatures, it was the closest thing to a missile. In the middle of the battle she remembered all the reports of Maria's investigation in Los Cabos.

** retrospective **

Hibiki was at a desk looking at different photographs taken by Maria, among them were several photos of Lara, Lucy and Jean having fun together.

Those photos caught her full attention and she stared at them for a long time.

** end of retrospective **

- "It doesn't seem like she was the kind of person who wants to exterminate humanity..." - Hibiki thought when she saw Anath in the distance inside Jean's body preparing for combat - "Actually... She reminds me of someone "

{Opening: "Sea of Fire" by SawanoHiroyuki [nZk]: mizuki}

EP11: "Transcendence"

- "Well, who will I start with?" - Anath wondered seeing which user to attack first as she stuck the Tyrfing sword into the ground because she knew she would not need it at that moment.

- "No need to decide because I'll start with you!" - Kristen shouted as she ran towards Anath pointing her trident at her, then she leaps forward and makes a move to attack her but disappears and appears momentarily several times, Anath does not move a single muscle until she manages to predict Kristen's next movement and stops the trident with two fingers.

- "What!?" - Kristen said surprised

- "That is the oldest trick I have ever seen" - Anath said with disgust, immediately throwing Kristen back, followed by her trident

Katsumi appears and with her golden gauntlets begins to deliver a flurry of blows which Anath stops using only her left hand.

At the same time Lucy prepares her pink energy knives and moves to attack Anath in the same way. Lara is not far behind and also joins the battle with various combinations of kicks, Anath did not need to try too hard to be able to contain the attacks of the 3 users.

Kristen recovers from the fall and tries to return to the battle but stops when she sees that Anath takes Katsumi, Lara and Lucy off her with an explosion of energy produced by her gear.

Anath then goes towards Kristen and does the same trick she did before but manages to stop her momentarily with Trishula's rod.

- "Using my tricks?" asked Kristen

- "Yes, the difference is that I am stronger than you!" - Anath's blow destroys the rod of Kristen's trident and hits the belly of the Trishula user, the impact was so strong that a crater in the ground was generated at that moment.

- "Ggghh... AAAAAAAAAAHHH!" - Kristen screamed in pain, catching the attention of the other users

- "Mi... Miss Yuzuki!" - Lara yelled as she ran towards Anath preparing an attack with her bow.

"KESSINGER SACRIS"

- "Go!" - Lara shouted and the energy arrow was shot towards Anath

The attack was repelled with great ease by the aforementioned.

- "You have interesting techniques..." - Anath said when suddenly she is hit by a flying gauntlet from Katsumi

- "Heh, it worked!" - Katsumi said with a smile

Anath was already beginning to lose her patience.

- "You let your guard down!" - Katsumi said while controlling the direction of her flying gauntlets with her hands

Anath was hit several times with the flying gauntlets until they were destroyed by her.

Katsumi recovers her staff thanks to the Nanotech Regeneration.

- "It doesn't matter, I still have this" - she lunges towards Anath trying to attack her with her staff on several occasions but the blows were stopped and dodged.

- "It's as if you don't know how to do anything else" - Anath said as she stopped one of the ends of Katsumi's staff and left her defenseless, then she gave her several blows to the face as well as to the chest and finished off with a kick in the belly.

Katsumi falls several meters in front of Anath, pain covering her body.

- "Even though we trained hard with Mr. Kazanari, her blows are like 1000 armies attacking in one go... Tch, I wish I could use my two gear levels but... It would seriously hurt Jean's body and that's not what we want"- Katsumi thought while trying to recover

Meanwhile Lara and Lucy try to attack Anath.

- "Jean! Remember who you are!" - Lucy implored as she defended herself from an attack by Anath - "We promised to find a home where we would be together without any worries!"

- "It's true, I've been paving that path all this time and we were very close to achieving it! You didn't need to do this, JEAN!" - that last cry from Lara echoed inside her body

In that dark place, Jean's naked body remained chained and her eyes were covered by a visor with a green line. After hearing her name, she raised her face a little.

- "Lara...? Lucy...?" - Jean mentioned in a weak voice

A red shadow appears in front of Jean.

- "No, remember our pact, you said you wanted to exterminate humans because they are a dangerous race"

{BGM: "TI UCCIDO MA NON MI SODDISFO" by Taku Iwasaki}

That moment in the actual battle caused Anath to lower her guard again but she quickly recovered.

Now with anger she takes Lucy's face and smashes it against the ground several times, then, with a lateral punch with all her strength she hits Lara sending her to fly backwards, meanwhile Anath jumps several meters forward and falls on top of her using her legs to crush her belly making her scream heartbreakingly.

Kristen returns to the battle determined to at least deal a blow to her face but Anath prevents it with a pulse of energy.

Lara manages to recover and slowly she returns to the battle.

At that moment Anath rises towards the sky and with her right hand invokes the Tyrfing sword which was stuck in the ground.

After a quick look she decides who will be her first victim.

- "It will be you!" - Anath said after fixing her eyes on Katsumi who was recovering, the sword begins to charge with a red, green and black energy.

Maria notices the hectic environment and sees that the person she is targeting is Katsumi

- "Katsumi!" - Maria shouted and with her remaining strength she ran towards the battlefield

- "Disappear!" - Anath yelled as she launched the now huge attack.

"RAGNA IRAE"

The attack was getting dangerously close to Katsumi who was unable to move because of the surrounding waves of the attack.

- "I won't be able to get there on time!" - Maria thought with tears in her eyes

When everything seemed like it was going to end, an orange colored light began to shine and blocked Anath's attack.

Katsumi opened her eyes and in front of her was Lucy using all the power of blades of her gear to create a force field.

- "Lucy...?" - Katsumi asked somewhat confused

- "You helped me to be me again" - Lucy said as she struggled and remembered the battle against Katsumi and Kristen

- "You never wanted to kill me for my crimes, you wanted to free me... You also wanted to give me a new life but it's a shame... I won't be able to enjoy it from now on" - Lucy added, at that moment she felt a hand touching her shoulder as a blue energy began to emanate.

- "Let me help you, one last time" - said Lara who was providing energy to Lucy so that she could make the force field.

- "Miss Hayashi, you and Miss Yuzuki were very kind to us, you helped us get to this point and we will be thankful to you forever" - Lara said as the energy began to crack her gear.

Anath powers her attack with more energy which push the girls back a bit.

The blades and various parts of Lucy's gear were beginning to break.

- "I think this is our end..." - Lara mentioned when she saw the increased power of the attack

- "Jean, if we have a chance to be reborn, we hope to see you again" - Lucy said as she closed her eyes slowly and smiled as she accepted her destiny, Lara did the same thing waiting just to fall into an eternal slumber.

Maria manages to arrive and save Katsumi while the gears Gram and Laevatein are completely destroyed along with the bodies of Lucy and Lara, the attack explodes and immediately there is a deathly silence.

- "Did I make it... Katsumi?" - Maria asked when she saw her protégé crying, then she turns her face towards the battlefield where the remains of the destroyed pendants of Lucy and Lara could be seen.

- "Oh no..." - Maria said sadly, a few meters away Kristen was with her face down trying to hold back her tears, while a great pulse of energy came from the core of her gear, at the same time that that pulse occurred, the darkness of the central jewel of the gear increased more.

Elfnein and Yuna who saw everything from the headquarters were sad and terrified, especially Elfnein who was the one who spent the most time with both girls.

- "They protected her..." - Anath said somewhat surprised - "Humans are strange creatures" - she added as her chest began to ache.

- "You again?" - Anath asked Jean who was beginning to react to what was happening

- "I... I didn't want this to happen!" - Jean said inside her body - "Lara, Lucy... forgive me"

- "Tch, shut up! From now on I'll take care of everything whether you like it or not!" - said the specter of Anath consuming Jean's soul.

In the actual battle Anath returned with her sadistic smile.

- "Well, now who will be next?" asked Anath

Katsumi turns away from Maria and stands up, her face denoting sadness but at the same time hunger for justice.

- "Katsumi?" - Maria asked, then her protégé walked slowly while her Gear passed through LV2 and LV3

- "Maria!" - Hibiki called through his mobile gear communicator - "What the hell is going on there? We heard a huge explosion!"

- "I... I don't know... too many things have happened... I can barely process it" - Maria answered almost in a low voice and with confusion

- "I will not hold back any more" - Katsumi said with an imposing voice getting Anath's attention - "You have done unforgivable things, and I..." - Katsumi raises her gaze revealing that her eyes had acquired a golden color - "... I won't let you get away with it!"

Katsumi uses her super speed ability to get to the place where Anath is.

- "What...?" - Anath asked, then Katsumi using her gauntlets hit Anath on several occasions but this time her blows were much stronger and more accurate.

- "Her power increased drastically! I love it!" - Anath said with a confident smile, then she stopped Katsumi's blows and for a few moments.

Katsumi delivers a powerful kick to Anath's jaw and then lands another kick to the head with enough force to send her to the ground.

Anath quickly recovers and Katsumi descends as if she were a bowling ball and then continues with her frenzy of attacks, in one of them Katsumi grabs Anath's face and smashes her to the ground, pressing her for a few moments.

- "What's wrong? Is this all you can do?" - Katsumi asked who was already getting carried away by anger.

- "Insolent!" - Anath said throwing a beam from her right eye which unleashes a huge torrent of energy

Katsumi walks away and Anath appears from behind leaving her defenseless.

- "You let your guard down!" - Anath said scaring Katsumi

Anath carries in her hand a green energy sphere which touches Katsumi's belly, then the energy sphere is fired at Katsumi and throws her several meters forward making her collide with her back against the giant tree leaving a big blood stain.

Katsumi's face denoted confusion, her body fell crashing into the ground, losing consciousness.

- "Kat!" - Kristen yelled trying to stand up

Katsumi's gear disappeared showing only Katsumi's normal form, that moment filled Kristen and Maria with horror.

- "Kat... No... You don't..." - Kristen said as she walked erratically towards her and some tears began to appear in her eyes

The core of Kristen's gear was beginning to darken completely.

In the headquarters when they were just recovering from the death of Lucy and Lara, a purple alarm appeared on all the monitors.

- "This can't be true!" - Yuna said terrified - "Kristen is going to..."

- "Yuna, what is it?" asked Elfnein

At that moment a huge message invaded the main screen of the headquarters: "UV CATASTROPHE"

In front of the warning, there was a diagram of Kristen in real time which measured the amount of heat coming from her emotions and the state of the core of her gear which was already about to go dark.

Kristen stopped and was at a distance enough to be noticed by Anath, the core of her gear was completely dark, then the black crystal was divided into two parts revealing a shining purple gem.

From that gem, two extensions appear on top of it and at the bottom of the crystal there is another purple gem with a 'V' like ending.

A black energy with blue edges covers Kristen's entire body.

- "Kat... Kat... GGGGHHH, AAAAAAAAAHHHH!" - Kristen yelled with all her might, that scream was accompanied by a thick voice in the background

Kristen generated a big torrent of energy, surrounded by several blue beams of bioelectricity.

Anath questioned what was happening, there were things that she did not understand about the human race but she was still firm in her belief of exterminating humans for being dangerous.

{Ending: "signs ~ Sakutsuki Hitoyo ~" by Minami Kuribayashi}

The torrent of energy became a sphere which was becoming smaller, hence a pair of dark wings with blue edges manifest, making her look like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

The energy sphere dissipated showing Kristen with a new gear; Trishula's original colors changed to a black and blue color pallette, her hair was now spiky and its ends are now bright blue, a pair of extensions of hair appeared on the sides. Her eyes shine with a bright blue energy and a large black shadow covered half of her face emphasizing the brightness of her eyes.

Some steam was coming out of her mouth and her voice was similar to the voice of a demon that had been freed from its chains and was ready to take its revenge.

Anath was intrigued by Kristen's new form, in her long existence she never believed she had seen anything like it, let alone from the human race.

At the headquarters, Elfnein and the other operators were trying to find an explanation for what they had just seen while Yuna was with her hand pressed to her chest, grabbing her sun pin and her face full of terror at seeing her little sister in such a horrible state.

Next Episode: "Our Will"