A/N: This Chapter will mainly be focused on the Branch School.

A month has passed since Tooru took out the second years, in this time, he has mastered his new abilities as a Level Three. In one of his many training sessions, he accidentally discovered that he could throw his slashes, hitting the target dummy from the other end of the room. Tooru worked to perfect the skill, making them more precise and deadly. By the end of his month long intensive training, Tooru had managed to muster enough force to slice a block of reinforced steel cleanly in half from the other end of the hall.

He had also managed to hone his speed with the new attack, reaching a point where he could shoot off a constant barrage of them as long as he was in a good stance. The training grounds were of course obliterated by this and had to undergo repairs, so Tooru was stuck with nothing to do for the remainder of the time.

He decided to take time to explore the academy, but was faced with access restrictions whenever he tried to go into some of the more suspicious looking rooms. The doors were Level Coded and most only opened for those of Level Four and above, locking Tooru out of most of them. He didn't try to punch his way through them because he could tell that he was at the edge of Sakuya's tolerance, having removed two batches of students from her facility. After exploring all the areas he could, Tooru found nothing much of interest and headed to Sakuya.

"Oi, Goth Loli-san, I'm bored, give me something to do for Level Four!"

Mikuni, the head teacher of the academy was in the office at the time, discussing the possibility of mid-year enrollment with her.

"Kokonoe Tooru, I would advise you to not be so brash with the President. I would have killed you already had she not shown such interest in you, you have cost the Dawn Organization many recruits."

"At ease Mikuni, Kokonoe, I have no need of you at the moment, I shall call upon you when I do. The gap between Level Three and Four is much larger than from Level Two to Three, if I give it to you now before you are properly assessed, there is a high likelihood that it would tear you apart from the inside out. Levels Two and Three only required your body to be able to handle it, but to achieve Level Four, your mind must also be trained to handle the stress of the Luciful."

"Fine fine, I'll head to town I guess."

Tooru headed to town to snoop around for information, meeting with some information dealers he had heard about. The search was mostly fruitless as expected, with no leads on Otoha's killer. The only thing he found out about was that the Exceed were apparently being targeted by a secret organization called Libels.

'That spy from that night must have been one of them… They haven't made a move yet, but they are likely to soon, considering how large of a threat I am.'

With nothing else to do, Tooru decided to check on a particular island that showed up in the archives. It was in the middle of the pacific, so Tooru had to 'borrow' a water ski to get there. The island was listed as a restricted area and was not marked on any maps, Tooru assumed it was an island that the Dawn Organization owned privately. He figured that he should at least see if it had anything of interest on it.

Tooru soon made landfall and started to look around for a vantage point he could use to get a lay of the land. He found a cliff nearby and headed there, there was nothing much of interest in sight, but there were many signs of recent human activity. Tooru lept off the cliff and jumped across the treetops to find any sort of civilization.

After a few minutes, Tooru was getting restless and decided to take a break. He swiped a coconut off the tree he was on and sat down. Cracking the coconut, Tooru took a drink as he looked around more thoroughly for a building or hut.

'Don't tell me it's an underground lab, those things take forever to find...'

Just as Tooru finished the thought, he saw a kunai fly at him out of the corner of his eye and jumped back. The projectile missed and Tooru analyzed its trajectory, looking to the possible source of the attack. He saw a cloaked figure with kunais worn around his fingers. They had purple lining, allowing Tooru to deduce that they were Exceeds.

'This must be some sort of secret base for Exceeds...'

Tooru jumped towards his prey and manifested his Blaze in mid air, stabbing the claws straight through his head. The kill was silent and did not alert any other people around to the incident. Tooru hid the body in a nearby bush before looking around for any other people, he spotted two together in the distance with their Blazes drawn. One held a kama and the other held a klewang.

Tooru at this point cursed that his weapon did not have a way to fire silently. It was a slight issue that hindered more stealthy actions, but he could get around it. From this distance, Tooru could make them out to be females and that they were somewhere within their teen years.

He decided to avoid them for now and headed more inland to find the facility they were housed in. Tooru had just seen the top of some building hidden within the jungle when he felt the tree he was on give way and fall. He looked down to see that another Exceed had cut it down with a yellow lined sword. Tooru jumped off before it hit the ground and landed, facing his foe, seeing that it was once again a female. The attacker then spoke.

"Its you!"

"Who are you?"

She took off her cloak to reveal herself as Imari.

"Ah… What are you doing here and still with your Blaze? Shouldn't you have had your Luciful removed and sent back to the mainland?"

"The branch school offered me admission after I healed from my injuries…"

"Keh, I figured something was strange when I didn't see any of the rejects in town, but I can see the reasoning behind it, the Dawn Organization needs its employees…"

"I'll make you pay for what you did to me!"

"Bring it!"

Imari charged Tooru and started attacking, hacking at him in order to keep his claws occupied.

"That's right… You haven't seen my Blaze before, meaning that this will certainly be a surprise…"

Tooru joined his two gauntlets together and they joined together forming the shield. Tooru had also gained a skill with his shield once he attained Level Three, it could trap weapons. Tooru activated the ability and once the sword struck the shield, a flame ignited, leaving behind a ring that forcefully fastened the sword to the shield. Imari tried to pull her sword free, but jumped back once she saw the slits on the shield opening.

Tooru was surprised by her awareness and decoupled his gauntlets, picking up the sword before tossing it in the air.

"Good job dodging that Imari, but there is one thing I want to ask you… What happens when a Blaze is destroyed?"

The sword spun as it began to fall and Tooru readied his claws to cut up the sword. Imari started to panic and jumped up in an attempt to retrieve her weapon before Tooru destroyed it. This move was exactly what Tooru anticipated, even if she had not jumped, he would have won by destroying her Blaze.

She had made herself unable to dodge by going for her sword, giving Tooru the opportunity to fire at her easily. He aimed his weapon at her and set it to Forty Calibres, and willed it to fire. The bullet left the barrel and flew straight for her, the Blaze imbued round shot her in the stomach, causing her body to recoil in shock.

She may have taken a hit, but Imari managed to recover her weapon. She demanifested her Blaze and held her wound, to slow the bleeding as she ran away to get help.

"Someone! Anyone! Help me, I've located the intru-"

She didn't get to finish a bullet hit her in the thigh, causing her to fall and skid on the ground. Imari looked back and saw Tooru with his claws by his sides running towards her. She tried to crawl away, to escape the man before her. He was quick, easily closing the distance between him and Imari near instantly.

"Any last words Imari? I'll grant you that for being the first Exceed to fight me…"

"Please… Don't hurt anyone else…"

"I'm sorry…"

Tooru aimed his weapon at her head and set it to his prefered setting for execution.

"But I don't take last requests."

As Tooru finished his sentence, the projectile was fired and the Fifty Calibre Blaze infused round killed her instantly. He quickly fled the scene of the crime and hid in a nearby bush to pick off the investigators, the more he killed now, the less resistance he would face later. The gunshots definitely attracted attention and sure enough, the two that Tooru saw earlier came to the scene, only to be shot in the head by Tooru's gun-claws.

The bodies slowly piled up as more people rushed to where they heard the gunshots, confident that guns would be powerless against Exceeds such as themselves, only to pay the ultimate price for underestimating their opponent. The students at the branch school got more and more cautious, suspecting there was more than one person just because of the number of shots they heard.

Soon the shooting stopped and after some time, a lone cloaked figure emerged from the woods covered in blood. Their immediate reaction was to try and and save their wounded ally. A group of them approached him while others ran inside to get some medical supplies. Unfortunately for them, the cloaked figure wasn't actually injured, or their ally…

"Blaze!"

The flames covered the arms of the figure and burned away the cloak it wore, leaving behind a vicious demon like person that spun around and sliced all the students with its claws. After finishing off the victims of its deceit, he moved on to slash at the air, sending a wave of compressed air toward the doorway to the institute and cutting the students holding on to the medical supplies.

Tooru quickly cleared out the school to avoid word getting out and started ransacking it for information. He looted the access cards for the rooms and other facilities off the instructors and hacked the main computer terminal. With unlimited access to the information present in the building, Tooru managed to learn a great deal about the inner workings of the Dawn Organization and about the hidden Luciful lab under the academy. The archives also contained video footage of Level Fours in action, save to say, Tooru was impressed and wanted to reach Level Four more than ever

'With Level Four, he won't stand a chance against me! I'll obliterate him and make him pay for what's he's done... Just a little while longer Otoha and I'll avenge you...'

Tooru stumbled upon an encrypted folder with a cover image. He zoomed into it and enhanced the quality to try and make out what was in it. He suddenly froze upon realization of who was in the frame. Otoha was in the picture beside him. He searched around for a storage device and quickly plugged it into the computer to export the file.

As the bar slowly filled itself, Tooru suddenly heard the siren sound and accessed the security cameras, he could not see anything within its range but the feed suddenly went dead, suggesting that the camera had been disabled. He quickly ran out to check on the situation.

As he exited the building, Tooru heard a gunshot and quickly jumped up, narrowly avoiding a shot from a sniper on the mountain side. He immediately retaliated and angled his gun-claw to fire a Thirty Calibre round right at the sniper's head. The bullet hit dead on and the sniper was killed instantly, Tooru looked around and saw an army of armoured personnel emerge from the jungle. They carried heavy rifles and began firing on him and the institute.

Tooru evaded the bullets with his heightened senses while simultaneously firing on them, each easily taken down by a mere Twenty Calibre bullet. The Blaze infused rounds easily penetrated the armor they wore and killed them off, the shooting stopped after multiple casualties and the soldiers parted for their leader to come forward.

"We meet again Kokonoe Tooru, I imagine the massacre back there and here was your doing?"

"So what if it was? I also don't recall ever meeting you anyway."

"Allow me to introduce myself, my name is K. I was the intruder last month, you damaged my Unit heavily and I had to retreat, but now it won't be so easy."

"You are wearing exactly the same thing these guys are wearing, I easily penetrated that."

"Don't be too sure."

K striped off the outer layer of armor to reveal his own improved Unit, it glowed neon sky blue and green. It also looked sleeker and more powerful compared to the dull one he had on earlier.

"Where you Exceed have transcended humanity with Luciful's power, we, the Libels, have done so with the Equipment Smith's Units. I have to thank you though, our development would not have progressed so quickly without help from one of your previous foes…"

"Tsukimi Rito…"

"Yes, her cooperation has helped us to perfect Unit earlier than expected. In return for her help, we've helped to remove the limit Blaze Diablica placed on her. While it is against our principles to partner up with Exceeds, we've made an exception to deal with you Kokonoe. We've also already succeeded in one of our goals here, the complete destruction of the branch school, cutting off support for the Dawn Organization."

He looked back to see the building suddenly explode and be consumed by flames. Tooru was angry at himself for not making sure to finish her off. They would not have attacked so early if she had not helped them. Tooru had finally found some information on his sister's killer and now it was taken away. He attacked all the Libels around him in rage, killing all the grunts off while their leader looked on in disbelief.

"What the hell is wrong with you idiots!? It's just one lousy Exceed! Kill him!"

"Enough talk! Are you going to fight me or not?!"

"Damn you! Kokonoe Tooru!"

K's eyes turned red with rage as he charged at him, firing all the charges of his weapon. Tooru got into a stance and focused his thoughts. He started sending off a barrage of compressed air slashes towards K and destroyed the projectiles. K jumped to the side to avoid the remaining attacks and continued his assault, drawing two lightning bolt shaped daggers from his sides and holding them in reverse grip.

He attacked Tooru with all he had, boosting his speed to the maximum and going straight for Tooru's heart. Tooru's moved his claws in the path of the blades and split them easily in half, kicking K in the chest afterwards. K landed three feet away and coughed out blood, he looked to see that the Unit had cracked.

"No way… No matter how strong you are, there's no way a Level Three could do this kind of damage with just a kick alone!"

Tooru brought up his gun-claws and fired off a storm of bullets at K, chipping off bits of the armor with every hit. Soon the bullets started to draw blood, puncturing wounds all over K. Tooru stopped after some time and walked over to K's near dead form.

"Me leaving Tsukimi alive has caused a huge inconvenience… I'll make sure to finish you off so I won't have that problem again…"

"Wait! Tsukimi! Help me!"

Tooru looked towards where K had called towards and saw a pair of feet flying at his face, he could not manage to dodge in time and was kicked away.

"Get the heck out of here you stupid Libels, he's mine!"

K scurried away and left Tsukimi to deal with Tooru while he watched from a safe distance. Tooru examined Tsukimi and saw that she was wearing a suit similar to that of K's.

"So we finally meet again Irregular, I'm glad I finally get to see you so I can have my revenge…"

"Blaze!"

"Time to get crazy with the moon rabbit!"

Tooru began the attack by firing off a barrage of bullets of varying Calibres. Tsukimi's Tebutje Blaze's segments split up and blocked the bullets from reaching her.

"You'll have to do better than that to beat me Irregular, my limiter has been removed and now you will face the full wrath of a Level Five!"

She held her Tebutje like a baseball bat before swinging it and stopping mid swing, sending a wave of force at Tooru, he managed to jump away in time, but the wave continued on, tearing through the ground and sending groups of bodies flying.

Tsukimi stabbed her blade into the ground and smashed in it, forcing it out in a circular serpent shape with Tooru as it's target. Tooru's claws clashed with the massive serpentine sword, forcing him back each time Tsukimi sent a wave down the Whip Blade. Eventually Tooru had to escape the sword clash and headed straight for Tsukimi instead, she pulled the blade out and clashed swords with Tooru directly.

"What's wrong Kokonoe? What happened to all that confidence from the last time we clashed blades? I thought you were going to make me pay?"

Tooru said nothing and changed the direction of one of his claws, locking the Tebutje in place.

"Nice try brat, but that won't work on this sword I'm afraid!"

Tsukimi willed her sword to split, the pieces above and below the one Tooru captured decoupled themselves and joined back together to form one sword again, albeit a bit shorter. Tsukimi used the shorter Blaze to strike at Tooru while he tried to keep the sword segment in place. Tooru had to give it up and let go of the segment to dodge the attack, which allowed it to rejoin the others.

"You have no chance! In fact, I'll give you the pleasure of one last lesson before I kill you! Look closely, this will probably be the last chance you'll get to see a Blaze's real power!"

"Devour! Ouroboros!"

Tsukimi's sword split off from the handle and flew upwards, forming a two circles and combining with it self, like a snake biting its own tail. The segments began to glow blue and spin, they spun faster and faster until it was a blur. Tsukimi sent the ball of death down to hunt Tooru, who ran to escape the death machine.

"Run! Yes, run for the rabbit of the moon Kokonoe! Hahahahaha!"

Tooru tried to outrun Ouroboros, but to no avail, going for Tsukimi would only speed up the ball because of it's proximity to her. He tried to increase the distance between him and Tsukimi, but Ouroboros would force him back towards her. He felt cornered and did the one thing he could think of.

Tooru turned around and manifested his shield in an attempt to fight off Ouroboros. The cross point of the wheels continuously grinded against his shield, trying to get through. Tooru activated the ability of his shield, forcing more and more power into it. The wheel was engulfed in a black flame and continued to burn and grind. The flames soon subsided, leaving behind a huge bracket that grinded the wheels to a halt. Tooru then lifted the shield up, bringing Ouroboro off the ground with it.

"Huh? What the heck do you think you are doing Irregular!? Let go of Ouroboros!"

Tsukimi tried to regain control over her Blaze, only to be shot in the arm by Tooru, causing her to drop the handle. He jumped into the air and started spinning, like a pinwheel of death, Tooru decoupled his gauntlets at just the right moment and the deadly Ouroboros flew towards its master.

Unable to react in time, Tsukimi took the blow head on. The impact threw a cloud of dust in the air, obstructing the result of the attack. A wave of compressed air sliced through the fog as it traveled to Tooru, he quickly dodged it and looked to its source to see Tsukimi with her Tebutje in its original form.

"You really scared me there Irregular, but my Unit protected me. I won't be so easily defeated this time! If I can't touch that shield of yours then I'll just do this instead!"

Tsukimi sent out more compressed air waves at her target, causing him to have to jump from side to side to avoid the slashes.

"Dance, Kokonoe, dance! Dance for the rabbit of the moon!"

Tooru was pissed, Tsukimi was actually a threat to him now, he blamed himself for not making sure of her death.

'If I make these kinds of mistakes when I'm fighting him, I might as well kill myself. I need to make sure no loose ends turn up at the last moment to bug me!'

Toori decided to stand his ground and combat Tsukimi's slashes with his own. Her slashes were strong, but slow. Tooru's were adequate but quick, he fired off a volley of slashes, obliterating her's with his. The two powers continued to clash against each other, until one of them broke the stalemate.

Tooru began firing bullets between slashes, creating more projectiles for Tsukimi to counter. She split her sword into its segments so it could act as a shield and took some time to strategize a counter attack. Tooru, however, had other plans, he changed the settings on his Blaze to Fifty Calibres and restarted his hail of bullets. The stronger bullets created sparks on impact, breaking Tsukimi from her thoughts forced her to start moving.

The more powerful bullets started to actually scrape her sword segments, pressurizing her to rejoin her sword's segments to prevent it from being destroyed. There was nothing she could do now but dodge the bullets heading her way. She was soon chased to a dead end.

'I can't risk unleashing Ouroboros lest Kokonoe catches it again, I can't split up the segments either or they'll be destroyed. He has the ranged advantage, but I have the strength advantage, I just need to find a way to utilize it. There's gotta be an opening in that Irregular's defense…'

Tsukimi tried using the twin daggers supplied by the suite to attack Tooru, only to have them break on impact with his claws. Tooru was mad, Tsukimi had set back his revenge majorly, he would make her pay for doing so. He immediately stabbed one claw into her left shoulder, using it to hold her firmly while he stabbed the other straight through her stomach. While he met with some initial resistance from the Unit, his rage empowered his Blaze and allowed it to pierce the armor. Tsukimi coughed out blood in pain but Tooru wasn't done yet. He expanded the gun barrels to fire Eighty Calibre bullets and willed them to continually fill Tsukimi with lead. The large amounts of Blaze infused in the bullets interfered with hers, causing her Blaze to demanifest. Soon her body stopped twitching from the pain as the life left her body.

Tooru threw her into the air and impaled her on his claws to finish the job and used the last of his energy to chase down K. He didn't have to use much and located him easily, appearing directly in front of him, causing him to fall back in shock.

"Wait Kokonoe! I'll offer you a deal! Let me live and I'll tell you of a place to get immense power!"

Tooru paused and allowed K to speak.

"There is a lab underground in the mainland, I have a map with me that shows the location. Within it, you will find all you need to achieve Level Five and become an Exceed-Unit hybrid like Tsukimi. You saw the immense power she achieved, think of what you could do with the same equipment! There is also a special armament the Equipment Smith has, Destruction. He wears it around his neck and is his most precious possession!"

"Interesting… I'll take you up on that offer K…"

"Oh thank you! I'll just be going then! I'll leave the map here…"

K ran off into a bush after setting it down and waited for Tooru to turn his back.

"Silly Exceed! Don't you know that the only person you can trust is yourself!"

K lunged at Tooru with a dagger from behind, quickly approaching his neck.

"Don't you know that the only person I believe is myself?"

K suddenly stopped mid flight as a bullet shot him straight through the brain, silencing him for good.

'This Equipment Smith better be the real deal...'

Tooru headed to a hotel in town to rest and recover, defeating Tsukimi had taken a lot of energy, the Eighty Calibre barrage had used up most of his reserves.

A/N: Writing this is getting difficult, all this new information in the latest episodes is throwing me off. I hope the last episode doesn't just blow my brain or something. The fight between the Libels and Ethnarch will be really interesting to write because of how I'm going to alter it but I hope it won't disappoint. Next chapter will cover episodes nine to twelve, it will be the last chapter, but there is something in the Author's Notes next chapter that might interest some of you.