A/N: A perfectly stupid what-if. Might seem like crack to start with, but things will get serious.
THE DUMBEST MISTAKE ANYONE COULD EVER MAKE…. EVER.
"Then why don't you make me listen to you?"
The question was asked as a taunt. Ryuga stared down at Gingka from the volcano's edge. He knew full well that this was a battle he would not lose, even if all of them came at him at once. He trained harder than them all, and he and L-Drago were connected in ways that they could not hope to comprehend.
If what he said was true, Gingka had come to him almost immediately after Pegasus had transformed without any training. Without any knowledge of the functioning of his bey, there was no way in hell that he would get the upper hand.
Also, the playing field had never been even. Ryuga possessed the full star that L-Drago had been made from, plus the fragment that he had just received. Meanwhile, Galaxy Pegasus had only been made from half of a star. Leone had been made from less than 0.1% of a star. Combining that with the fact that Ryuga's training made theirs look like kindergarten, there was only one way this could go.
He wouldn't admit it, but he was just a little excited to battle Gingka again. As pathetic as he may have been, he was still the second strongest in the world. (Right after Ryuga himself, of course.) This would probably be the toughest battle he was going to have in a long time.
Sure, the battle was going to be child's play, but at least he would have to use his launcher, which spoke volumes about the difference between him and the rest of the world.
"I guess I have no choice, then!" Gingka yelled back, locking Pegasus into his launcher. "If I win, you will listen to us!"
"It's a deal!"
Ryuga smirked and attached L-Drago to his launcher as well, ignoring the murmurs and mindless chattering of the rest of the group. In fact, he was so excited that he blocked out much more than he should have, but who could blame him? He was so overpowered that he could count the number of bladers who could force him to use his launcher on the fingers of one hand. Being that overpowered was boring, and this was the closest thing to a challenge he was going to get. He slid into his stance, moving his right foot back and adjusting his weight.
"Let it Rip!" Gingka cried out.
"Let it Ri-huh?"
For the rest of his life, Ryuga would berate himself for making that stupid mistake. He had let his excitement get the better of him and had ignored his surroundings.
Moving his foot backwards while he was standing on the edge of a volcano hadn't been the best idea.
As a result, Ryuga lost his balance while launching. He stumbled backwards into the mouth of the volcano, and L-Drago hit the ground incredibly awkwardly, with almost no spin.
"Quickly! I must engage survive mode now!" Ryuga thought desperately as he grabbed on to a rock on his way down. The lava wouldn't kill him, but it would sure hurt like hell, and he didn't have time for that at the moment. With his inhuman strength, he flung himself back up with one arm, and then grabbed onto the edge from which he had fallen. He pulled himself up with ease.
This was the one disadvantage of completely mastering his bey. L-Drago would not automatically engage Final Survive.
"L-Drago! Sur- "
"Pegasus, full power!"
Unfortunately, Ryuga had spent a few precious seconds getting back to the battlefield, and even someone as incompetent as Gingka could take advantage of five seconds.
KA-BLOOOSH!
Ryuga winced and immediately regretted every single decision he'd ever made as L-Drago was blasted clean off the volcano. He was still connected to L-Drago, and finding his bey would be no problem, buuuuut…
He had just lost.
He could always blame it on the bad launch, but inside, he knew that observation of one's surroundings was an essential part of a battle. Gingka had (albeit accidentally) chosen a better location than he had.
But a bigger problem made itself known. As Ryuga was deciding on whether or not to tear his own hair out, he caught sight of Gingka's shit-eating grin.
"No. Oh no. Oh no, no, no. This is so not happening."
"Ryu~ga." Gingka said smugly, and the Dragon Emperor nearly crushed his own teeth.
But then he saw Gingka's hand extended as if he was asking for a handshake, and he nearly blew every blood vessel in his body.
"We had a de~al." Gingka said in a sing-song voice, and Ryuga was seriously contemplating death over partnering up with Gingka. Luckily, the volcano behind him would suffice to kill him… If he hadn't trained himself for months to survive lava.
"Damn it! I'm so strong that even I can't kill myself!"
His gaze returned to Gingka, and he felt the violent urge to blow up a mountain or a continent. Which he would have done, if he had L-Drago on his person. Which he did not.
He could have simply broken the deal. He could have simply punched their lights out and run off to Antarctica where they would never find him.
If only he weren't such a man of honor.
Promises meant a lot to Ryuga. He would never break any that he made. Sure, he very rarely promised anyone anything, but this had been one of those rare cases. He had made a promise, and now it was his turn to keep his end of the deal.
So he would.
Ryuga walked stiffly towards Gingka, trying his best not to strangle the redhead. Trembling from the exertion of not committing murder, Ryuga slowly raised his shaking hand and shook Gingka's, trying desperately not to crush the other boy's hand. While it would have been incredibly satisfying, he needed Gingka to be able to launch so that he could have a rematch as soon as possible.
"Welcome to the team, Ryuga!" Gingka said cheerfully, causing Ryuga to glare at him even more.
"Don't push it. I'm off to get L-Drago."
Without another word, he turned around and began walking away, not wanting to look at that group for another second.
The weight of what he had done was crashing down upon him. He had essentially given himself over to them until this whole 'Nemesis' thing was over. They couldn't force him to keep up with his end of the deal, but they didn't need to. He would do that himself, no matter how much he hated doing so.
He trudged down the volcano, and once he entered the forest, he let out a roar that scared the birds right out of their nests.
Madoka, Kenta, Yuki, Sela, and Benkei shivered as an earsplitting howl was heard across the entire island. Birds took flight from their nests, and even the crickets stopped making noises.
"I don't like the sound of that." Kenta said, worried.
"Whatever it is, I don't want to meet it." Madoka said, and everyone nodded.
"It doesn't matter," Gingka said, looking extraordinarily elated. "We've got Ryuga on our side now! I don't care how strong this God of Destruction is, but he's not winning against us, that's for sure!"
"Mr. Gingka, is Ryuga really that powerful?" Yuki asked.
"Of course he is! If he hadn't lost his balance, I would have had a hard time beating him."
They continued to walk until they reached the village. Luckily, no one had noticed that they had gone missing, and they were able to sneak back in through Sela's window. Kyoya chose to sleep in the wild, and Benkei chose to stay with him without a second thought. They slept peacefully that night.
However, someone who did not sleep well that night was Ryuga, who continued to punch trees in a frenzy. He had found L-Drago and was unleashing his wrath upon anything he found. Boulders shattered before his fists and trees fell over. He roared once more, but there was nothing left in his vicinity. All the birds had abandoned the island, and all the other creatures had buried themselves far underground.
The dragon rose from his figure, twisting in fury before unleashing an unending stream of fire which even pierced the clouds. Everyone who was awake saw the blast and tried to reassure others who had seen it as well. More rumors about the dragon god being angry were whispered.
But nothing could hope to interrupt Gingka's peaceful sleep that night. He had defeated Ryuga, even though it had been a fluke. God of Destruction or not, there was no way they were going to lose anymore.
He couldn't wait to see the look on Johannes' face when they ran into him again.
Dawn came, and with it, the yelling of angry villagers woke Gingka from his slumber.
"Huh? What's going on?" He mumbled sleepily.
"I suppose Ryuga's back, and that's why everyone's making a fuss." Madoka said, brushing her hair at abnormal speeds. There was a flurry of action as everyone woke up and freshened up as fast as they could. Within a minute, they were running towards the center of the village, where everyone had formed a circle with a ten-meter radius.
At the center of that circle was Ryuga, and he was looking absolutely pissed. The self-control he had to exert in order to not blow the island to smithereens was unreal. He almost slipped the moment he caught sight of Gingka and his servants. No, wait, Gingka didn't call them servants. What was the word again….? Friends. Yeah, that was what he called them. Friends.
The profanities that the villagers hurled at him were easily ignored, but Gingka's annoying voice was much harder to block out.
"Ryuga! Come on, we're going back to Japan!"
That was all he needed to hear before he started walking, ignoring everything else. The villagers tried to block his way, but he allowed his aura to run wild, and they scattered within seconds.
He walked towards the dock, maintaining a constant pace as the Gingka group ran to catch up to him.
It took them a minute to catch up to him with all their luggage. What Ryuga was curious to know was how they were going to get off the island.
Ryuga looked on as Gingka surveyed the empty dock, where there was no boat.
"Did – did we come here a day early?" Gingka asked, inciting Ryuga to roll his eyes. Trust Gingka to forget when the boat was supposed to be arriving.
"Yes. Yes we did." Madoka said, checking her watch.
"Well then, I guess there's only one thing to do," Gingka said, dropping his bags in the sand. "Training!"
Ryuga watched dumbfounded as he watched their so-called 'training'. What a joke. They were just battling each other in random order, simply trying to increase their power. Had they really come at him with a 'my numbers are bigger than yours' mentality? Did Gingka even know that his fusion wheel could switch between three modes? Did he even know that his performance tip could change modes?
"Pegasus, Final Drive mode!"
Well, that answered one question. But it was clear that he was still ignorant of his fusion wheel being able to change modes. He probably only knew of the performance tip mode change because without knowledge about it, it was an automatic mechanism and he had most likely discovered it in a previous battle. Kyoya had gone and promptly ignored him, choosing to keep Leone in attack mode. Why did he have to teach these babies how to use their beys? With a single look, he had discerned Pegasus' abilities, while Gingka had been wandering around for weeks without noticing. Had he ever even taken his bey apart? Was the world's second strongest this pathetic?
Kyoya and Gingka clashed again, raising a cloud of sand.
"Absolutely pathetic. They thought they stood a chance against me like this? What do they think I do all day? Is this their training? No wonder they're so weak. They don't even know how to use their own power, and they think that they can challenge me?!"
"Battle me, Ryuga!" Kyoya roared, just having driven Pegasus into a sand dune, where it had stopped spinning. "I'm going to pay you back for last night."
Veins popped out all over Ryuga's forehead. He knew more about Leone than Kyoya did himself, and yet, he had the audacity…
"Tell me, why do you think that this battle is going to go any differently than it did last night?" Ryuga growled as L-Drago snapped into Final Survive mode in his hand.
"I'm stronger than I was yesterday, and I'm stronger than you….."
Ryuga's mind blanked out with rage at this point.
"This brat….. This absolutely incompetent fool thinks that he is stronger than me?! He thinks his paltry training can compare to the literal hells I've walked through? He thinks that he can defeat the Dragon Emperor just because he got a shiny new toy? He thinks that he can beat me, just like that?!"
Flames surrounded Ryuga, and his eyes flashed red. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed L-Drago Destructor into the sand. It spun incredibly slowly, but in Final Survive mode, it was stable.
"Come on then," Ryuga spoke, channeling all his rage into his voice. It sounded as if an actual dragon had spoken. "I'll take you on like this. But be warned – You've managed to seriously piss me off. If you battle me right now, I assure you, you will have nightmares about today for the rest of your life."
"You think you can look down on me like that?! I'll show you! Leone!" Kyoya yelled, launching with all his might. Fang Leone barreled into L-Drago Destructor and kept going. Ryuga pushed himself to the maximum, forcing L-Drago to continue spinning.
Slowly, but surely, L-Drago began spinning faster, taking Leone's strength. And as L-Drago spun faster, both beys slowed down. L-Drago offered more and more resistance with each passing second, until they were evenly matched.
"What's the matter, Leone? Keep attacking!"
The flames around Ryuga intensified a hundredfold.
"Did you really think that you could defeat me? Have you even managed to use a special move with your new bey yet?"
Kyoya's silence gave him all the answers he needed. It also pissed him off even more, if that was even possible.
"You thought….. You thought you could defeat me without knowing how your beys work, without special moves, without training…. Just who the hell do you think I am?!" Ryuga roared, catching everyone's attention. L-Drago's speed increased even further, draining more of Leone's strength. Now, L-Drago was they bey pushing Leone back. Ryuga mentally switched L-Drago's tip into hole-flat mode and the energy ring into attack mode.
"I don't want to show them my trump card, but I'm too angry to care. If they think they can beat me in their sorry states, I have to remind them exactly why I'm the strongest. Although this is the first time I'm doing it. I'll try it at 1% power first, see how that goes."
"It looks like I need to remind you amateurs of the difference between you and I! Ultimate move: Dragon Emperor Life Destructor!"
In an instant, everyone except Ryuga was blown off their feet by a bone-breaking shockwave. The massive form of L-Drago rose into the sky, carrying the relatively tiny lion in its jaws as it ascended into the clouds. In the distance, Ryuga saw another small island a few kilometers away, and L-Drago told him that it was uninhabited. Perfect for target practice.
L-Drago smashed Leone into the island with cataclysmic force. A mushroom cloud of flame and smoke rose several kilometers high, towering over them like the after-effects of a nuclear blast. Freak waves were generated in every direction. The island itself crumbled and sank, and L-Drago returned to Ryuga's hand like a comet. The number of Indonesian islands went down by one.
He turned around to see the others trembling. They were all wide-eyed with horror and disbelief. Kyoya's mouth was open in a silent yell, and he was frozen to the spot.
"That was just a fraction of what I can bring to bear. Don't any of you dare think that the likes of you could ever defeat me. Gingka!" The redhead immediately snapped to attention. "Why is it that I am the one who has to teach you how to use your own bey? Are you really that pathetic? The five-year-old girl hiding behind the trees understands more about blading than you do. I'm only going to say this once, so listen up – If you ever challenge me without knowing the full extent of your bey's abilities, I will destroy you. Permanently."
With a smooth movement, Ryuga launched L-Drago, and the dragon materialized, vaporizing the freak wave that was seconds away from drowning them. He caught L-Drago and turned around, walking over to a further part of the beach. He sat down and began meditating, trying to suppress his killing urges.
He also needed to recover a bit. The Life Destructor was aptly named, after all.
He had known what using an ultimate move to its fullest would do, but even 1% put a strain on his spirit. He would recover in a few minutes but using more than 50% would have serious side-effects. Using over 90% would be risky, but he'd manage. 100% would mean instant death. A literal last resort which he would never have to use. His special move could match about 10% of his ultimate move, so using the Life Destructor at less than 20% would be an absolute waste of life force.
Not that there would be anyone who would be able to handle his special move at 10%. If Gingka actually became competent, he'd probably be able to survive his special move at 60% power, but no more. There was no power in the world that would require the ultimate move. The ultimate move was just for flexing alone, or to destroy the moon if it fell to Earth, or in case of an alien invasion, or another equally impossible scenario.
There was also another reason why he had to take a break.
He had acted too rashly. While he had learned all there was to learn about the new L-Drago, both the bey and the blader had yet to adapt to the new dramatic increase in power. Gingka and Kyoya faced no such problems since they couldn't draw out the full power of their beys to begin with, but Ryuga was definitely affected by this.
He had gone and tried to use more power than he was accustomed to, and it had backfired. The end result was his ultimate move being a lot weaker than it was supposed to be and he had sustained several internal injuries from the backlash. It would still be a while before he gained complete mastery of his new power.
Kyoya continued to stare out at the place where L-Drago had nuked Leone. His eyes were wide open, and he felt a very real stab of fear travel through his body.
"S-such power….." He gasped. "How is this even possible?"
No one had any answers. Even Madoka, who generally had an explanation for everything was looking at her now overloaded computer in horror. L-Drago's numbers had been so high that her computer had fried itself trying to calculate all that data. To add to that, Ryuga had said that this had only been a fraction of his true strength. What in the world would his full strength be like?
Kyoya forcibly shut his mouth and jumped into the sea. A few kilometers were nothing to him. He'd get Leone back.
No one spoke for quite a while. Sela had emerged from her hiding spot, and Kenta and Yuki had quietly battled her as far away from Ryuga as possible. Even Benkei was silent. Even when Kyoya returned with Leone a few hours later, he was much more subdued. He just sat against a tree, staring at the very banged-up Leone. He wasn't going to be battling anyone anytime soon.
Ryuga's anger returned when he realized that none of the others could catch their own food. While Kyoya would have been able to do so normally, he was in no condition to do anything. And so, they had ended up relying on the five-year old to bring them food.
"Pampered little shits," Ryuga thought as he caught fish with his bare hands. "How dare they call themselves the strongest in the world? If Gingka didn't have the second most powerful bey in the world to begin with, he'd be a nobody. There are literal street thugs who are better than him, except that they don't have legendary overpowered beys."
Ryuga continued to do his best to try and not kill the others. It was infuriating, seeing that the world's strongest were so unused to hardship. On his travels, he'd met several others who trained much more diligently and dangerously than these guys did. There had even been two candidates whom he had deemed worthy of wielding L-Drago. Gingka and his group didn't even come close
He picked up dry sticks and brought back an armful for his campfire. He glared at the pile of wood, and it burst into flames. With the edge of his gauntlet, he cut open the fish, cleaned them, and then stuck them in the ground on sticks, roasting them. He could feel the others looking at him from over a hundred meters away, but he did not allow himself to react to them. Pests like them weren't worth the effort.
That aside, he had shown them how far apart they were in terms of skill and power, but he knew that Gingka would be stupid enough to challenge him within a month at most, thinking that his numbers had gotten big enough. Maybe he should have used the Life Destructor at 90% and sent Leone to the core of the Earth, if it didn't immediately disintegrate, that is. Carrying out a threat was a much more effective fear tactic than just threatening someone. It certainly would have ended Kyoya's blading career permanently, even more so than that Hikaru girl. Gingka would have probably been too horrified to move after that, but Ryuga knew better than to label Gingka as 'predictable'. Incompetent fool he may be, but he did have a knack for pulling off last second miracles.
He scowled. It wasn't enough. The difference between them wasn't big enough. At the moment, he was about twenty times stronger than Gingka. If he counted his ultimate move, that would go up to 1,000.
Numbers weren't enough.
1,000 may have been a huge difference, especially considering how strong Gingka was to begin with. But it wasn't enough. Not for the Dragon Emperor.
The difference needed to be incomprehensible.
There needed to be such a vast gap between him and everyone else that none could possibly dream of beating him. But most of all, he needed to be so strong that no matter how injured he was, no matter how badly and slowly L-Drago was launched, he would be the unquestionable victor. He needed to improve to the point where he would have won the fight on the volcano, even if he had fallen into the lava pit.
He needed to up his training. There was hardly anything on Earth that could kill him anymore, so it was probably time to see if L-Drago could transport him to the moon. That could prove to be the life-and-death scenario that could push him to the next level. He had already mastered L-Drago Destructor. He didn't know what the next transformation would bring, but he'd master it within an hour as well.
A significant distance away from Ryuga, Gingka and the others were huddled together for warmth, due to their lack of a fire. Technically, Gingka, Madoka, Kenta, and Yuki were huddled together. Kyoya was still looking at the sheer amount of damage Leone had taken, while Benkei was sitting across from him, worried.
Kyoya still couldn't believe it. Even with the awesome power of the star fragment, he had still lost. Not once, but TWICE! To the same opponent! In the span of less than twelve hours!
Leone's new power had been meaningless. Counter mode had been meaningless. It just wasn't possible! With the power boost he had gotten, he should have been invincible! And yet, he had been completely defeated, and the second time hadn't even been a challenge for Ryuga. The guy had frickin' launched his bey by hand!
The worst part was that Ryuga's power far surpassed his own. There never was any contest – Ryuga had been destined to win from the start. Kyoya considered himself lucky that he had actually found Leone in one piece. Any more force and his blade would have shattered. Finding the pieces at the bottom of the ocean would have proven impossible.
It was highly unusual for the Leone wielder to think like this. The normal him would shrug off his defeat and battle again and win.
But being defeated by a mere hand-launch…..
Ryuga had been an opponent unlike any other. The Ryuga he had fought during battle bladers couldn't even begin to compare to the one he had fought a few hours ago.
He hated even thinking about it, but this Ryuga terrified him, more than anything else. Ryuga had damaged more than just his bey – he had directly attacked Kyoya's blader spirit and had completely shattered it. That kind of damage was permanent, and no amount of training would fix it. He realized that Ryuga had done good on his promise – this battle would haunt him to his dying day.
Gingka, Yuki, Kenta, and Madoka huddled together as the temperatures dropped. They were on a beach, so the air currents from the ocean kept the temperature from dropping too far, but it was still rather cool.
There was also another chill that none of them wanted to talk about.
Gingka was chilled by how lucky he was.
Madoka and Kenta were chilled by the sheer magnitude of what had happened.
Yuki was chilled by the fact that there were such strong bladers out there. If ten such monsters were needed to stop Nemesis, then how strong would the God of Destruction be?!
Ever since he had met him, Yuki had been convinced that Gingka was pretty much as good as anyone could get. He was already the world champion, and he had become a legendary blader on top of that. It would be crazy to doubt his strength in battle. He thought Kyoya was unworthy to be a legendary blader, but even so, his power was undeniable, almost on par with Gingka's.
But Ryuga had blasted him away so effortlessly. The battle had been completely one-sided, if it could have even been called a battle in the first place. If only a fraction of his power while launching his bey with his hand was enough to completely annihilate a legendary blader, then how much strength could he bring to bear if he tried?
And what the heck was an ultimate move?! Most significantly powerful bladers had special moves, but until now, he had never heard of an ultimate move. It had been too ridiculously overpowered to put into words. It was forcing him to alter his perceptions of the world.
Ryuga was, in fact, right. They were completely unprepared. They had just gone at him, hoping their power exceeded his. They knew nothing of their own beys, and worse, they didn't have any special moves yet. The stronger the bladers, the more importance special moves held. As legendary bladers, this importance would be unimaginable, like bringing a machine gun to a battle of swords.
They had gone up against a monster, without their strongest weapons. It was a miracle that they were all still alive.
Meanwhile, not only had Ryuga become so powerful that he dwarfed them all combined, but he had also developed an even more powerful weapon, which could undoubtedly crush the rest of the world's strongest weapons. A satellite-mounted laser cannon, just to compare.
Gingka, Madoka, Kenta, and Yuki shivered at how frighteningly lucky they had been. Had Ryuga not lost his balance….. who knows what would have happened?
The night was beaten back by the first light of day. Kyoya had gotten no sleep. He had terrifying visions every time he closed his eyes. Benkei had stayed up half the night, but even he had eventually fallen asleep. Gingka, Madoka, Kenta, and Yuki had more sleep than Benkei, but definitely less than normal. There was also the question of why they had all woken at first light, even before the sun was visible.
The answer was the Dragon Emperor, who had gotten a full night's rest. L-Drago's fiery form soared above them, twisting through the air. Ryuga's eyes were shut in concentration, and then he thrust his arm out towards the ocean.
Everyone felt like they were witnessing a living legend in his most famous moments. Before Ryuga, the ocean parted, creating a dry path in between. The ocean continued to part until it reached the horizon and then some more. The path was a good ten meters wide, and not even the sand remained wet.
L-Drago landed directly in the gauntlet on his outstretched arm, but the ocean stayed parted. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and flames engulfed his figure as he continued to put Moses to shame with only his own power. He snapped his fingers, and both walls of water rushed back to meet each other.
Ryuga did his best to stop his hand from trembling. Controlling that much water with only his own power was incredibly difficult. But at least now he had found more areas for growth, which meant that he could put his moon plans on hold.
His plans for the near future in the making, he dove into the ocean to catch his breakfast. Fish and seaweed were easy to come by but destroying that island had clouded the water a bit. It would still take days for it all to settle down completely.
He built his fire and had his breakfast of roasted fish with seaweed salad. He was a survivor, first and foremost, so he wasn't bothered by the rather repetitive meals. There were the occasional days when he had some other wild animal to hunt, but he mostly stuck to fish and fruits.
Meanwhile, Gingka's group was still recovering from Ryuga's unbeatable Moses impression. Splitting that much water with a bey was incredible to begin with but doing so and holding it for a good half minute without a bey was unthinkable. It was just outright impossible. While Madoka could analyze any bey within minutes, she could not fathom as to how Ryuga had split the ocean apart.
Could it really be possible that he had actually become so strong that his own power was so great? It was not unheard of for bey to possess unbelievable powers, but a person? Madoka had experienced the power humans could wield without beys firsthand. She knew for a fact that Mei-Mei could punch a person through a stone wall over twenty meters away. The rest of Beylin temple could probably perform feats of equal, if not greater magnitude. Given that Ryuga was Ryuga, it made sense for him to be ridiculously overpowered, but this was pushing it.
Which raised even more questions – Did Ryuga even need a bey to win?
Madoka remembered when Gingka had recalled Ryuga's warning before the finals of the world championships. He had blasted the HD Academy bladers off their feet without needing to launch L-Drago. Given that he had gotten much stronger since then, would it be possible for him to beat a legendary blader without launching L-Drago?
The possibility was very real. It would probably be incredibly difficult for him, but something of that magnitude would completely destroy the power system that had been built up over millennia of blading.
Then again, he was Ryuga. Common sense and logic did not apply.
Madoka had nearly fainted upon seeing the damage done to Fang Leone. That was another night of sleep she was going to lose when they got back to Japan.
But the shocking part was that Fang Leone had taken so much damage. During testing in Japan, Leone had shown record-breaking levels of durability. Putting a scratch on it had been ridiculously hard, and so far, only Gingka had managed to put even minor scratches on Leone.
Ryuga, on the other hand, had nearly completely shattered Leone. The spin track and performance tip were half-missing, the two layers of the fusion wheel had been fused together by the extreme heat and had completely deformed it. To add insult to injury, the head of a dragon had been imprinted on the fusion wheel. The energy ring was so twisted that it was no longer possible to even attach Leone to its launcher. The worst part was that the internal damage was so severe, that an opera singer would be able to shatter Leone with her voice.
Eventually, the boat did arrive, and everyone looked at Ryuga questioningly when he didn't get on.
"Come on, Ryuga. This is our boat."
Ryuga scoffed.
"Yeah, right. As if I'd ever need to use a boat to go anywhere. You may be so pathetic that you still need stuff like boats to get around, but don't confuse your kind with me for an instant."
Without another word, Ryuga dove straight into the sea and began swimming north, towards Japan.
A/N: And so it begins. The only person who can force Ryuga to join up with Gingka is himself, and lucky for us, he puts himself in a position for that to happen.