Akane brushed aside her strange doubts as her imagination playing games with her and raised her tonfa into a battle position. The robotic tiger responded by returning to its aggressive posture and resuming its tinny growls. Just as Akane was about to pounce forward, the gray engine on the creature's undercarriage began to spin and generate a force that interrupted her balance. She quickly realized the beast was using the direct opposite of her own Robe's most powerful ability, creating a vacuum of wind that pulled her forward rather than blasting her back. She quickly activated the motors on her wrists and ankles in an attempt fly against the flow of air, but found herself unable to escape the large cat's spiraling power.
Akane was suddenly overcome with terror when her flight devices gave way entirely, her tonfa flew from her hands, and she was uncontrollably drawn toward her attacker. The great beast stood on its armored hind legs to catch its prey in its steel jowls, and Akane responded by screaming in pain as she felt the monster's silvery fangs pierce her side. She continued to whimper and sob as the metal tiger hungrily squeezed its fangs further into her soft exposed belly and nearly cut her in two at the waist. Her Robed body soon fell limp in the creature's jagged grip, causing the the long ribbon hanging from her lower back to lazily brush against the stone ground. By the time Akane's lifeless remains burst into green flame and dissolved from the creature's mouth in glowing embers, the guards had recollected themselves and overwhelmed their target in an organized attack. Since Aswad's technology wasn't as advanced as Garderobe's, the monster's hide gave way under the guards' normal steel swords, and it slumped to the ground after being reduced to a royal pincushion. Although the beast's carcass could be salvaged for scrap metal, it was too late to save the king, who suddenly grabbed his side in pain in the throne room and quickly disappeared in the same spectacle as his fallen Otome.
The great beast's sacrifice was not in vain. With the Pure Heart Malachite's defeat and the subsequent death of Windbloom's king, Aswad had taken the war out of the Columns' favor. They soon had the capacity and the morale to eliminate the Columns themselves in similar attacks, and the rest of the free world gradually joined Midori's cause. The War of the Five Columns ended with the Columns' defeat.
THE END.