Chapter 40: Termination

"Haaa...Haaa..." Oudo panted harshly, cold sweat rolling down his temple, his eyes wide in utter disbelief.

Not at the fact that his partner, Yukuhashi, was laid defeated on the ground, not even that he had several cuts and lacerations all across his body, blood covering him, as most of his clothes were torn apart leaving him with the bare minimum left covering his modesty.

No. What he was most shocked about and livid...

Was that he was kneeling on the ground, completely defeated!

KNEELING!!

'Impossible! This is impossible!! How could this have happened?!' He grinded his teeth as he raised his head, glaring at the man that now stood before him, victorious, unscathed and smirking.

Zenkichi flipped the Desert Eagle around in his finger and hid it in his pants, commenting, "Well, that ended quicker than I expected. For being the head honcho of the elite group of superhumans in this school, I overestimated you."

His eyes turned cold, sparks of electricity crackled around him, his face expressionless, as he uttered,

"I'm disappointed."

Seriously, he didn't even use any of his Quincy abilities.

He really wanted to use them...

"YOU BASTARD!" Oudo yelled out, veins popping out, electricity once more crackled around his body and he was about to charge at Zenkichi.

"Behave."

Oudo froze in place. His body no longer at his control, he could only hatefully glare at Zenkichi, whose body radiated with electricity, as he felt completely.... helpless.

It was humiliating.

It was to the point that he had spat out a mouthful of blood.

'Drama Queen. It's like he's from a cultivation novel...'

Shaking his head, Zenkichi turned towards Naze with raised eyebrows. "So, can you tell me how to shut down the Flask Project? I'm guessing it has to do with the 13th floor," he glanced back at Oudo. "which I'm also wondering why this guy is here, considering he's the 13th floor head."

'Don't tell me someone replaced this guy. Oh well, judging by how I easily defeated him, whoever replaced him shouldn't be too strong.' He thought

Their battle could be summarized by three simple words.

One sided beatdown.

Oudo only had one thing going for him and that was his ability to use electrons or electricity to control people and machines, Zenkichi wasn't affected by him because of his will and psyche of a Quincy at first, and he inadvertently copied his skill as well, and he had easily destroyed any machines thrown at him. Though Oudo wasn't bad in unarmed combat, he wasn't particularly good either.

It didn't take long for him to defeat him, and he only brought out the Desert Eagle to further cower the man into submission before he does something like a dead man's switch or gets some kind of power up.

Why use a gun if he could use his Quincy abilities to really scare the guy? It was just a waste and that it have much of an impact.

Guns are scary when you're a normal human, and Oudo was just an ordinary human in the end.

As for Yukuhashi...he wasn't really much of a fighter, though he tried shapeshifting into Medaka, Zenkichi just knew the latter too much and easily saw through the disguise. He just knocked him/her out with a good old blow to the head.

Naze, who was still processing the entire ordeal, blinked her eye and dryly chuckled as she tried to keep her emotions in check.

In this battle, Zenkichi had shown a level of power and skill that she had never seen before. But considering he'd been mostly one-shotting all his opponents on the way here, that didn't really tell much of his true battle prowess.

'I think I finally figured out what his true skill is, it's certainly not his Armament Haki.' Her eyes gleamed.

'It's some kind of adaptability or evolution skill that gives him a power up every time he feels like he's about to die or defeated. Considering that he had been brought back from the dead after having fallen out of the building with his neck broken, from what White Ghost reported, his skill doesn't seem to have any kind of limit.'

'His skill, it might be something different than being just abnormal. Haaa. I wanted to betray him when he was at his lowest but it looks like no one in Thirteen Party could threaten him. Unless those guys appears... But they don't really give a damn about the project or whatever else is happening as long as it doesn't disturb their lazy lives.'

It only took her a millisecond to think all that and finally responded to Zenkichi's inquiry,

"Shutting down the project is quite simple really. There are two steps. First step is that we head down towards the 13th floor, which contains the decades of the entire Flask Plan data and other incriminating evidence against those who supported this plan to come to fruition, we destroy all the data which would set the entire project back to the point it would take a decade or two to recover even 10% of it."

"But not before we download all those evidence on the supporters of the project which we'll use in step 2, which is to take them to court with all the evidence we download."

"Normally it wouldn't affect much and could even bail themselves out but," Naze silent stare at him made it clear what she wanted to say.

Zenkichi nodded, "I got to have Medaka-chan on my back with me if I want to send those bastards to prison for most of their lives."

"Correcto mondo~"

As they talked, they started to walk past the defeated pair.

Just as they had past by Oudo.

"Wait! How... how did you defeat me?" Oudo uttered, his voice shaking with a mix of anger and frustration.

Zenkichi, with complete indifference, replied. "It's simple, really. I am just stronger than you."

Oudo's eyes widened, his head lowered, contemplating his life once more.

Zenkichi didn't pay him anymore attention as he and Naze went down the stairs for the next and final floor.

"How foolish of you both, Hitoyoshi Zenkichi and traitorous cunt Naze Youka. Just going down the final floor without any sort of preparation."

Oudo's eyes snapped opened, standing up, he turned towards where the mysterious voice was.

"Who's there?!"

"Hmph. We haven't seen each other for a while and this is all you can say to me, o delusional king."

A young girl stepped out of one of the arcade games, specifically the Street Fighter one. She has fair skin with freckles across the bridge of her nose, purple-grey eyes, and wears her short black hair in a bob.

But what was most interesting about her was that she was wearing tactical gear consisting of a black kevlar vest, cargo pants, combat boots, and gloves. Moreover, knives were the only things that could be seen on her.

"You... you're still alive?" Oudo was shocked. He didn't expect to see this girl.

"Miyakonojou Oudo, Yukuhashi Mizou, you both as well as most of the floor heads of the facility, have failed in stopping an intruder and a traitor from entering the 13th floor. Thus, you have failed your mission, your purpose."

Her eyes gleamed coldly as she pulled out a dark military knife.

"Those who have failed their mission, will receive immediate termination."

Oudo grounded his teeth, unresigned, as he raised his hands and emitted bursts of electricity that made almost all the arcade machines rise in the air.

"Oh yeah? And what gives you the right to order this king's death?"

"As it is my right, as the Ultimate Soldier."