Levin

When Jinrai swept his shortsword against Hameki to separate him from the rest of his team, flashes of twinkling stellar light particles radiated from his cyan aura to transmit them onto his enemy to blind him. Jinrai tore off Ryo's nanosuit by pressing against his chest, returning it to Ryo by tossing it over his shoulder. The open wound on his bleeding arm was patched up after spending minutes with the nanosuit's healing capabilities. Although he was missing an arm, Jinrai continued to fight for his life to protect his allies.

"Disgusting ingrate...!" Hameki insulted, summoning floating violet blips of energy to surround him with psychic energy. "How dare you touch me!"

"Got you all pissed off now, did I?!" Jinrai shouted, priming his shortsword to ready his next assault. Blood trickled down his forehead and dripped down his nose. He spun his shortsword around and caught it with the same hand. "You're a legend for not listening to him!" He commended Ryo's decision. "Now, let's finish this fight! Come on! RYO NAKAI!"

"Right!" Ryo shouted, activating his nanosuit. Using the genius tactic that he improvised on the spot when training with Jinrai, he pressed against his left palm's mag booster and searched for the thin thread on it. After locating it, he yanked on it to overload the device, potentially sacrificing his left hand for the sake of enhancing his combat abilities to support Jinrai. The magenta-colored energies spiraled out of control, pushing Natia, Claire, and Weiss away as the ground levitated around him in a massive aura.

"Let's see you handle this, you piece of shit!" Jinrai roared immensely, summoning hundreds of Jinrai afterimages after dashing around Hameki's floating position. All of them charged at Hameki in unison at maximum velocity, hoping to strike him down and potentially distract him. Hameki, however, was cunning and used his psychic energy to push them away all at once.

Meanwhile, Ryo struggled to contain the energy of his overloaded mag booster. Instead of giving up, he continued trying with the help of Natia, who rushed toward him and used her mag booster to assist in containing it before it could detonate. Both of them hovered their hands on Ryo's overcharged mag booster, applying as much pressure and force to push it down.

After Hameki destroyed all of the afterimages, Jinrai bolted toward him, bolstering high-intense speeds without the need of using his feet. He flung himself toward Hameki, snatching his throat after piercing through his invisible gravitational and psychic barrier. Their blue and violet energies collided with another, with Jinrai's being on top. They collided with multiple Kathuz City buildings, passing through them and shattering all of them into pieces. Jinrai ended his attack by tossing Hameki through an open explosive mine where the Kathuz slaves previously worked, detonating a chain reaction of stored chemicals to explode the area sky-high.

"Come on, come on, come on, you piece of shit!" Natia cried, concentrating her power to push the mag booster to its absolute limit. She focused her gaze on Ryo, who shouted at full strength to finish his secret technique. She closed her eyes and bellowed amidst the gravitational chaos. "Come on, Ryo! We can do this! Together!" She confidently stated.

"Together?" Ryo whispered, still finding it difficult to believe that Natia would say such a thing that she once abhorred. It confirmed his decision to reject Hameki and Ash Meguro together, favoring Natia, Jinrai, Claire, Sumire, and his friends, and his current status as a member of Sunlight. It was evidence that Natia was beginning to change who she once was, supporting Ryo to her fullest potential. Ryo smiled and nodded in understanding, focusing on suppressing his mag booster tenfold the strength. "Together!" He shouted.

Ryo and Natia shouted together in unison to contain the power, and the mag booster's charge was complete. The gravitational pull on the ground ceased entirely, containing a compact nuclear-level device in the palm of his left hand. The magenta color on his overloaded mag booster rotated in a spherical electron ball, primed to detonate at the mere touch of anything in its way. The drawback of his contained attack was that his V2 nanosuit disintegrated entirely and melded into his left palm, meaning that he lost his ability to fly at top speeds.

The aftermath of the explosive mine's detonation rained down fire and rubble across Kathuz City, blanketing it in a sea of flame. Homes, shelters, and thousands of years living in poverty were burning to a crisp, demolishing the framework for what the people had lived for. Civilians evacuated the premises, sheltering in the far side of the Pisces District in Aries. Bystanders and police officers did their absolute best to support them despite their dramatically different facial features and characteristics.

While the terrain around them was set on fire, Hameki escaped the underground mine and clashed with Jinrai in mid-air, striking down on his shortsword with his sharpened hands. The violet blips around him pelted Jinrai's body with magnum-sized holes on his shoulders, legs, and waist. Blood gushed out of his wounds, but it did not stop him from fighting. Jinrai flipped in midair and sliced the blips with his Levin-charged shortsword, dashing toward Hameki with a puncturing stab at light speed.

"We have to help Jinrai!" Ryo yelled, containing the device in his left hand with extreme precaution. "How do we get to him?!"

Natia closed her eyes and concentrated her power to ignite the flame within her soul, unleashing the Sixth Sense: Pale Thrall ability. The divine flaming phoenix appeared on her back, wrapping Ryo around safely without burning his body. Natia ignited her ignition booster and ascended the skies, gliding toward Jinrai's position with Ryo below her. "Okay, what the hell are we aiming for!?" She asked.

"I don't have a fucking clue!" Ryo shouted, snapping his right fingers to come up with a plan.

"What!?" Natia cried. "You don't have a fucking plan?! What if we can't stop him!?"

"Okay, I got it!" Ryo improvised. "His chest is the core! Weiss's face... it has to be where his heart is! If I can get this mag booster to him, then we can kill him!"

"You better hope that works!" Natia cried, pointing her finger at Jinrai and Hameki's position. "Over there!" Instead of directly heading to their position, she lingered and soared around their perimeter to stall for time.

"What are you doing!?" Ryo cried.

"We only have one shot at this! If you can't get it off on him, then it's over for us!" Natia said.

"You're gonna leave Jinrai all by himself!?"

Natia released the truth of how she viewed Jinrai all at once, dissolving her memories of how vile and how much of a prankster he was to humiliate her during the mission. The fact that he had protected Ryo and herself with his life, declaring them his students even with a missing arm, was genuine proof of how much of a brave and prideful man he was to her. "I trust him!" She admitted aloud. "I trust him to create an opening for us to strike! I've always liked Jinrai on our team, and that much I know!"

Ryo grinned until his teeth were shown, still believing her incredible change was a fever dream. Together, they soared across Kathuz City with the help of the phoenix thrall.

Jinrai and Hameki's speeds were even. However, Hameki began to grow increasingly frustrated by the amount of effort and power he put into facing a single-armed man, still growing evenly matched despite it all. His flawless facial and body features began to dramatically shift until they matched the Jester's previous transformation; his muscles bulged outward until veins were visible, and his skin turned completely pale. Weiss's face, coated in an amber alloy in the center of his chest, opened up to unveil a hidden power.

"You'll regret all of this tonight, you wretch!" Hameki shouted, plunging a violet-charged blip into his hand and pushing it deeply into Jinrai's front.

Jinrai dashed away in midair in response to the blow.

"He dodged it?" Hameki gasped, unaware of Jinrai's position.

From above, Jinrai utilized his Levin-charged shortsword and the weight of the immersive gravity to slam down upon Hameki's body. He sliced the back of Hameki's shoulders, denting his synthetic skin enough so that it bled profusely. Stellar lights and twinkling energies from Jinrai's cyan aura invaded Hameki's wounds, permanently opening them and corrupting his false body with spiritual energy.

"I hope you're watching, Seira. Goro. Claire... Natia Zanner... Ryo Nakai!" Jinrai chuckled as he continued diving towards Hameki with his right hand aimed for the nape of his neck. He turned his head and called for Ryo and Natia in midair. He stepped down on Hameki's feet and pinned him toward the ground, using the weight of Hameki's psychic energy infused with his stellar energies to freeze his body. "RYO NAKAI! NATIA ZANNER! ATTACK NOW!" He shouted at the top of his lungs.

Ryo denied his request. "We'll hit you!" He shouted back.

"JUST DO IT!" Jinrai insisted, using the last of his strength to keep Hameki down.

"You savages," Hameki roared, lashing out his tongue as the Jester's tendrils began popping out of his back. He swung his body from side to side to break free from Jinrai's grasp. "YOU SAVAGES! I'LL KILL YOU ALL!" He lashed out, loosening the grip on Jinrai's feet on one of his own.

Ryo turned his head toward Natia abruptly as he prepared himself in a position with his legs squatted for a nosedive. "Natia! Throw me at him! Now!" He ordered.

Natia grit her teeth, hesitating for a brief second. "You better come back from this alive, you hear me?!" She insisted, preparing to detach the phoenix thrall on her back. "You're such a fucking idiot if you mess this up!"

"THROW ME!" Ryo shouted.

"GO!" Natia retaliated, detaching the phoenix from her back to let it free fall towards Hameki and Jinrai's position. Together, they soared down to ground level until Ryo discharged his knees back, pushing off of the phoenix's torso to launch himself at full speed. The phoenix launched itself toward Hameki's body, throwing him off guard and obscuring his vision from where he expected Ryo to land.

Ryo thrust his mag-booster-charged palm toward Hameki, who snarled at the sight of Ryo's face rushing toward him. Hameki broke free from Jinrai's grasp on his foot and released his grip on his nape. He shot his elbow back against Jinrai's cheek to send him flying backward and prepared to dash out of the way, but it was too late. Ryo already met with Hameki halfway, and the mag-booster's gravitational pull prevented Hameki from moving any further to dodge the attack.

Natia and Jinrai both watched Ryo clashing with Hameki seconds before the nuclear device on his left palm connected with his chest.

"YOUR CHOICE!" Ryo copied Hameki's response to him after he had made his decision to side with Natia and the others. Jinrai's stellar energies from his Levin Form enveloped Ryo with the supreme power of a shooting star. Hameki's psychic force dissipated after Ryo's presence penetrated through with his omnipotent yet latent technique. His left hand began to burn intensely, rupturing and splitting his arm's bones as a sacrifice with his attack.

Fight the pain...! Fight it...! It's only temporary... you have to do this... for everyone who ever believed in you! For Jinrai... for Claire... for Sumire... and for Natia, he thought.

"HAMEKI!" Ryo shouted, colliding his overloaded mag booster with Hameki's chest. The moment it connected with the amber-shielded barricade of Weiss's face, it cracked, spiraling the insides of his core into stellar particles and energies that expanded upon collision. Parts of Ryo's shirt and tattered pants tore off from the impact. His body began to slice itself through the massively induced pressure of his charged blow.

At last, the device shattered Weiss's face in the center of Hameki's chest and pierced through, creating an explosive singularity inside the memory fragment. Ryo and Hameki howled in unison, battling for control over the singularity and who would emerge victorious.

All of Kathuz City and the skies around Aries crackled in lightning-infused pressure, quaking the ground and seas to create earthquakes and surging tides that crashed against Aries. Civilians sheltered in hiding and protected one another. Several news stations covered the ongoing incident, pressured by its origins and reluctance to seek further information.

The amber memory fragment residing within Hameki's core cracked, releasing a flash of light that blinded Ryo for a short period. The ethereal and heavenly energies within blanketed Ryo in a pale white domain where the cries of a young girl could be heard. Ryo rushed toward the light at the end of the domain with his left hand still pushing to meet with her.

Voices from Ryo's childhood friends and allies began playing in his ear. Sez's scolding banter, Sophie's decrees to protect Ash, and even Ash herself, calling Ryo's eyes beautiful at the moment that they had set off the events that led to his life changing forever. The young girl at the end of the light turned around, revealing herself to be Ash Meguro smiling at Ryo.

"I... will... not... DIE!" Hameki's voice suddenly shattered the ethereal blanket surrounding Ryo, bringing him back to reality. The singularity refused to detonate. There was not enough pressure and force to go from, and the longer that Ryo pushed, the weaker he got; it would eventually lead to his death if he was unable to set it off. "You'll never see your precious Ash Meguro or April Springwell again! You'll never change who you were! You will be the same person that you always were! YOU FOOLISH WRETCH!"

"I can't..." Ryo murmured, closing his eyes to contain the strength that he had amounted. Control yourself, Ryo. Control yourself! Just push through... push through... with all you got! He thought.

He sensed a gentle feeling stroke his palm, opening his eyes to see Natia by his right side with her palm conjoined with his to strengthen his resolve. Another tap on Ryo's shoulder made him turn to the left, seeing Jinrai's right-hand push with him as a team. Combined with the strength of his allies, Ryo knew one thing that he could change that disproportionately conflicted with Hameki's words; he wasn't the same person anymore. He wasn't alone.

"PUSH THROUGH!" Ryo yelled.

"TOGETHER!" Natia roared.

"AS ONE!" Jinrai followed.

Ryo, Natia, and Jinrai amalgamated the last of their stamina and vigor in one final shout in unison, striking through the memory fragment to split it apart. It fractured into shards that dissolved with the singularity's dissolving properties, entering Ryo's left hand manufactured as a newly healed memory fragment without Genesis's corruption bestowed upon it.

Hameki, who cried out in agony from his synthetic body disintegrating from the stellar and cosmic forces inside him, lashed out with his hands to attempt to stop him from death. The three of them eventually broke free from their rooted position, carrying themselves toward the skies with Hameki like a comet discharging from outer space.

Claire and Weiss rushed toward them before they ascended to the horizon, praying for their safety. The Seraphians, who were Claire's comrades, supported her by cheering for their victory. The civilians of Kathuz and Aries, who were protecting each other from the catastrophes that struck their districts, also witnessed the extent of it all. It was only then, for a brief moment, that Natia's words at the Albastor Pavillion touched their hearts. She was telling the truth, and they knew everything would change for the better.

"Damn... you...!" Hameki's copied voice of Jinrai began to phase away as it replaced itself with the Jester's original childish cries. Hameki was nothing but a walking husk of what it originally was, a failsafe for the original creation. Without the memory fragment to power his core, he laid back as the three continuously pushed him toward the skies and clouds above. His eyes bled with violet-colored blood, and his skin began shredding into pieces. "It hurts! It hurts! IT HURTS! MAKE IT STOP!"

"DON'T STOP!" Natia shouted as Jinrai's cosmic aura enveloped her with an abundance of stamina. The three of them shot straight for the stars above, breaking through the atmospheric layers at top velocity. The suppressed memories of her mother and father protecting her before they died opened up, revealing how joyous they were. She found herself standing with them at the pinnacle of her heart, along with her current allies including Ryo.

"BREAK IT!" Jinrai commanded Ryo to let go of his grasp on the singularity. But before he did, he needed to split it in half to detonate it completely. After Jinrai instructed him to do so, Ryo clamped his hand down on the singularity and split it apart with his bare hand. Claire's smile energized his stamina, using his Levin to pierce through all of the worries and decisions that he had made.

"FUCK YOU!" Ryo insulted one last time before kicking Hameki away into the cosmic space. Natia and Jinrai held each other as the gravitational pull suspended them in midair for a brief period. They witnessed Hameki's demise and cries for help as the singularity created a dimensional rift inside his chest that sucked in the mass of his flailing body.

"MAKE IT... STOP...!" Hameki's voice drowned completely as his physical body disintegrated into the dimensional rift. All remnants of Hameki and the Jester's immoral and wicked shell were nothing but particles inside the rift. One final explosion of the singularity's energy inside the rift signaled the end of their lives, transforming what remained of them into an infinite rain of cosmic dust and stars that lightly descended the skies toward Aries like a gentle barrage of snowflakes.

Ryo clutched the memory fragment in his chest, guided by Natia and Jinrai who glided down to safety. Although their wounds were tremendously severe, they held out as long as they could. They were able to accomplish much more in the span of their time together, learning and growing with each other to finally emerge victorious in the end.

As they glided down to where Claire and Weiss waited for them, Ryo and Natia embraced each other in midair with a mutual, gentle, and carefree hug in celebration. No words were uttered out of their mouths as they both knew that they saved each other with the help of Jinrai. Their vows had come true, and they knew it would remain that way for a very long time.