The tournament arena pulsed with chaotic energy, echoing with the shrill cries of combat and the roaring bloodlust of thousands. Amid the crumbling battlefield, where metal sang and abilities flared like dying stars, Mika Ishida stood—her figure wreathed in a whirlwind of unseen force. Her hair whipped around her face, eyes glowing with raw focus. Where once her kinetic blasts had burst in concussive arcs, now the very air bent to her will.
Floating shards of broken debris orbited around her like obedient satellites. With a flick of her fingers, she launched them with telekinetic precision, piercing the defenses of the Smiling Rats faction like arrows through cloth. Bodies were flung aside. Walls splintered. And amidst it all, Vera Corbin—the leader of the Smiling Rats—watched in mounting horror.
The battlefield had turned against her.
Mika moved like a war goddess incarnate, hurling fighters into the air and pinning them mid-flight with invisible force before sending them crashing into the hard stone floor. One by one, her targets crumpled, unconscious or broken, their auras flickering out like candles in a storm.
On the edge of the arena, Asano of the Black Crow stood frozen. His trademark smirk had vanished, replaced with a furrowed brow and clenched fists. "This... this shouldn't be happening," he growled, jaw tight. "How the hell did they awaken that much power?"
Beside him, Kiyoshi Takeda of the Forgotten Dawn adjusted his gloves with rigid fingers, his calculating eyes barely blinking as they followed Mika's relentless assault. "She's not just evolving. That's a complete awakening. Her ability isn't kinetic anymore... it's fully telekinetic."
Dante Varek of the Crimson Pact clicked his tongue, the heavy rings on his fingers glowing faintly. "This changes everything. If they continue this pace, they'll dismantle the Rats entirely... and us, right after."
Vera Corbin, caught in the eye of the storm, fought to maintain composure. Her thin frame trembled with the effort of channeling her toxin-based mutation. Spindly veins etched glowing paths along her skin as she unleashed wave after wave of venomous mist, but none could land. Mika's control of the field had grown too precise—her ability deflected the toxins and carved paths through them like wind parting a fog.
"Help me!" Vera screamed over the chaos, her voice cracking. "They're taking us apart! We're being erased!"
The other faction leaders hesitated. Not out of apathy—but uncertainty. They were watching their assumptions unravel before their eyes.
Takeshi Mori, his body coursing with pulsating strength, broke a trio of Smiling Rats fighters with a crushing shoulder charge. "Holy hell," he muttered, watching Mika. "I didn't even know she could do that... We might actually win this."
Yumi Takahashi slinked through shadows like a phantom, stepping through flickers of darkness to disable disoriented enemies. Her voice crackled in their earpieces. "Focus. Mika's opening a path. We don't waste this."
Kaito Nakamura stood electrified, lightning dancing from his clenched fists to his shoulders. "Guess she's the real nuke on the team, huh?" he grinned, before blasting a Smiling Rat mutant with a thunderous haymaker that sent the man spiraling into unconsciousness.
Above the arena, in the elevated VIP section, Abe Hikari of the Spiral Fangs stared with mouth agape. His fingers tapped rhythmically against the polished armrest of his seat. "Impossible... This isn't the same team that stumbled through the qualifiers." His eyes narrowed on Renji. "Just what have you become...?"
Renji stood at the center of the chaos, still and silent, a beast leashed by threads of purpose. His eyes moved from Mika to the enemy ranks, reading the unraveling battlefield with the precision of a tactician and the intuition of a predator. His presence remained unyielding, his body vibrating with suppressed energy.
One of the Smiling Rats lunged at Mika with a blade coated in acidic venom—only to be suspended in midair. Mika, without even looking, flicked her wrist, and the attacker was flung across the field, crashing into a shattered pillar.
The spectators erupted.
From the stone benches to the blood-soaked balconies, the entire arena boiled with excitement, disbelief, and awe. Cheers thundered like a tidal wave, chants echoing Mika's name, the underdog narrative twisting into something more terrifying: dominance.
"The Smiling Rats are falling!" one announcer screamed into the mic. "They're breaking—breaking! And the source of the collapse is that girl—Mika Ishida!"
Vera staggered back, sweat and toxins dripping from her body. Her vision swam. Panic clutched her lungs like a vice. "I won't go down like this... not like this!" she shrieked, summoning the last reserves of her power in a desperate final wave of corrosive energy.
But Mika had seen it coming. She didn't dodge.
She stopped it mid-air.
The venom hung there—frozen.
Then Mika reversed the wave, sending it crashing back onto Vera.
---
The tournament arena burned with raw anticipation, the deafening roars of the crowd clashing against the cracking thunder of mutant energy. Chaos had become choreography—an intricate ballet of survival and strategy. And at the center of it all, two figures rose above the madness like twin storms: Renji Kuroya and Mika Ishida.
Mika hovered slightly above the battlefield, the subtle distortion in the air around her revealing the pressure of her newly awakened telekinetic abilities. Where once she had relied on kinetic bursts alone, now the battlefield was her puppet stage. Rubble floated in mid-air, twisted shards of metal turned into projectile spears, and enemy combatants were wrenched off their feet like ragdolls.
Renji, by contrast, was all fury. Each step he took was deliberate, lethal—his mutated form restrained just enough to keep control, but wild enough to terrify. His strikes didn't just incapacitate; they broke formations, shattered morale, and forced even the most seasoned faction fighters to reconsider their approach. Together, Renji and Mika were a two-pronged disaster—a force that bent the tide of the war-dance in their favor.
As their presence grew more overwhelming, the other three factions—Black Crow, Forgotten Dawn, and Crimson Pact—found themselves recoiling, not from weakness, but from the sheer unrelenting pressure exerted by two mutants operating at the peak of evolution.
While Renji and Mika drove the enemy's spearhead into retreat, the rest of their team followed through like precision instruments of demolition. Takeshi Mori, with veins bulging and eyes burning with focus, became a living battering ram. His enhanced physical abilities allowed him to move with explosive bursts—smashing through barricades and guards alike, his punches leaving craters in the ground.
Beside him, Yumi Takahashi danced in and out of shadows. Her eyes glowed like coals under a veil of living darkness, her body disappearing one moment and reappearing behind her prey the next. She was not the storm—she was the assassin in its wake, cold, quiet, and efficient. Her blades, formed of compressed shadow, slid through flesh and armor as though slicing smoke.
And Kaito Nakamura, energized by the momentum, was lightning incarnate. His electric punches crackled louder than the crowd's cheers, each strike sending shockwaves across the battlefield. He became a one-man riot, his limbs wreathed in arcs of power, knocking multiple enemies unconscious before they could even react.
The Smiling Rats—already buckling under the sheer tenacity of Renji and Mika—crumbled under the assault of the trio. One by one, their members fell, until the faction's fighting spirit eroded into panic and confusion. And at the helm of their disintegrating force stood Vera Corbin, her voice trembling as she screamed orders that no longer held weight.
Vera's chest heaved. Her mutant ability, once reliable, was proving ineffective against the team's evolved might. Her metallic claws couldn't scratch Takeshi's reinforced body, nor could she catch Yumi's elusive form. And Mika—Mika was a goddamned telekinetic powerhouse now.
She turned toward the other faction leaders, desperation painting her expression. "Asano! Kiyoshi! Dante! What are you waiting for!?"
But help wasn't coming—at least, not quickly enough.
Asano of the Black Crow stood still for a moment too long, the battlefield unfolding chaotically before his eyes. His gaze locked onto Mika, then Renji. He could barely keep up with the flow of their assaults. For the first time in years, the great Asano—master of misdirection, architect of domination—felt outplayed.
His teeth clenched. His lips drew back into a grimace. His pupils dilated with restrained rage.
This wasn't how things were supposed to go.
He was supposed to be the top predator.
He surged forward, body cloaked in swirling black energy. His strikes turned sharper, faster, but sloppier. Where once he struck with precision, now he lashed out with desperation. All he could see was Renji—a mutant not bound by faction, rising from obscurity, dominating his battlefield.
But for every attack Asano launched, Renji parried with something smarter, something savagely calculated. His claws extended with each counter, his feet moved with brutal agility, and his grin… that grin. It mocked Asano in ways that words never could.
Kiyoshi Takeda of the Forgotten Dawn watched with sharp eyes, arms crossed, hidden behind layers of shimmering spatial light. Unlike Asano, he hadn't yet moved. But something in his gaze shifted.
"Is he… panicking?" Kiyoshi muttered.
Dante Varek, standing beside him with arms ablaze in crimson energy, frowned. "Asano doesn't panic."
"He is now."
Both men turned back to the battlefield, where Mika was manipulating a dozen steel beams like spears, crashing them into enemy lines. Kaito followed close behind, leaping from collapsed structures and striking enemy mutants with charged fists that sent electrical storms rippling outward.
Yumi's shadows coiled around a group of Smiling Rats, trapping them in an inescapable dome of darkness. A scream echoed. Then silence.
And Renji—he was aiming directly for Vera.