Feast of the Starved Beast

The Wendigo loomed before them, a monument to hunger and despair. Its towering, skeletal frame stood over nine feet tall, the tattered remains of frostbitten flesh stretched grotesquely over jagged bones. Pale, cracked skin glistened with an unnatural blue light as frozen veins pulsed faintly, like dying embers refusing to extinguish. Spines erupted from its hunched back, twisting upward like antlers corrupted by chaos.

Its skull-like head, an unholy fusion of deer and beast, exuded primal terror. Jagged, ice-encrusted horns spiraled outward, framing hollow, glowing blue eyes that seemed to pierce through the very soul. Its maw gaped open, a cavern of jagged, yellowed teeth lined with blackened frost, emitting a low, guttural growl that rattled the air and chilled their blood.

Around the creature, the temperature plummeted further. Each step it took left the ground coated in frost, brittle and cracking under the weight of its aura. A swirling mist of icy vapor coiled around its limbs, giving it an ethereal, otherworldly presence. The very act of its existence seemed to strain the fabric of reality, as though the beast was a living curse.

Katsuki's voice cut through the suffocating dread, low but steady. "I'll handle this."

Hikari turned to him, her voice trembling. "Wait! You can't—"

He was already moving.

In a blur, Katsuki transformed into his Turbo Form. His tousled brown hair ignited into ravenous black flames streaked with violent violet, their glow casting eerie, shifting shadows across the frozen street. His eyes became twin beacons of unrelenting light, glowing with an intensity that seemed to bend reality itself. The jagged frames of his glasses morphed into sleek, angular shades pulsing with dark energy.

Shadowy energy crackled and sparked around him, the air warping with sheer velocity. A spectral jaw mask materialized over his face, its jagged teeth glinting like shards of annihilation. Katsuki became a living storm, a force of chaos condensed into human form.

He took a single step forward.

And the world exploded.

Katsuki launched himself like a missile, breaking the sound barrier in an instant. The resulting shockwave tore through Shibuya, shattering glass and sending parked cars skidding across the icy streets. Windows burst, alarms wailed, and the ground buckled beneath the force of his acceleration.

He didn't stop. Katsuki twisted mid-air, his figure a streak of darkness and flame, striking the Wendigo with a speed that reality itself struggled to keep up with. The impact was deafening, a thunderclap that sent a seismic ripple through the street. The force of the blow cratered the ground beneath the Wendigo, fissures spidering out in every direction.

The Wendigo staggered, its towering frame bending under the assault. But it didn't fall. Instead, it let out an earsplitting roar, an unholy cacophony of pain and rage that reverberated through their very bones.

Hikari, Lyra, and Lila shielded their ears as the Wendigo's icy aura surged outward, freezing everything it touched. A wave of frost raced across the ground, encasing cars, lampposts, and shattered debris in crystalline ice. The temperature plummeted even further, their breaths condensing into thick clouds.

Lyra cursed under her breath. "This thing's not going down easy."

Hikari's hands trembled as she clutched her pendant, her heart pounding. "Katsuki… don't get yourself killed."

Katsuki didn't falter. His voice rang out, steady and defiant. "Don't worry about me. Just focus on not dying."

The Wendigo lunged forward with terrifying speed, its spindly claws slicing through the air with enough force to rend steel. Katsuki darted to the side, a shadow weaving through its attacks. He countered with a burst of violet energy, the force blasting into the Wendigo's chest and sending chunks of frostbitten flesh scattering like shards of glass.

But the creature was relentless. Its hollow eyes burned brighter, and from its maw came a guttural, choking noise—laughter. The sound was maddening, a thousand voices shrieking in unison, filling the air with despair. The Wendigo raised one skeletal arm, veins glowing ominously, and jagged spears of ice erupted from the ground, slicing toward Katsuki.

He barely dodged, the spears grazing his arm and drawing blood. A hiss escaped through his jaw mask, but he pressed on, his energy surging. The violet flames around him grew wilder, hotter, licking at the edges of the frost-covered battlefield.

"Alright, you ugly bastard," Katsuki growled. "Let's see how fast you really are."

He surged forward again, faster than before, his movements blurring into nothingness. Each strike he landed sent shockwaves through the air, but the Wendigo endured, its grotesque body knitting itself back together as fast as he could tear it apart.

Lila's voice cut through the chaos. "Katsuki! It's regenerating too fast! You need to hit it all at once!"

Katsuki grinned beneath his mask. "Then I'll just have to go all in."

He leapt high into the air, the violet flames around him coalescing into a sphere of pure destruction. The Wendigo looked up, its glowing eyes narrowing, and released another guttural roar. Tendrils of icy mist shot toward Katsuki, twisting and curling like living things, but he was faster.

"Turbo Breaker!"

The sphere detonated as Katsuki drove it downward, crashing into the Wendigo with the force of a meteor. The impact unleashed a blinding explosion of violet and black energy, the shockwave ripping through the frozen cityscape. Ice shattered, shadows burned away, and the Wendigo's unholy roar was drowned out by the sound of its own destruction.

As the dust settled, Katsuki stood amidst the wreckage, his breath ragged but steady. The crater beneath him was deep, its edges still glowing faintly with the residual energy of his attack. The Wendigo's twisted, broken form lay motionless, its once-burning eyes now dark.

He turned back to the group, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. "Told you. No problem."

But as the shadows around the crater began to ripple, Hikari's eyes widened. "…Katsuki, behind you!"

The Wendigo emerged from the smoldering crater, its towering, skeletal frame radiating frost and malice as it lunged toward Katsuki. Its claws, jagged and impossibly long, slashed through the air with deadly precision, aiming directly for Katsuki's chest.

Before it could land the fatal blow, a burst of blinding movement sliced through the tension. In a mere five seconds, Lyra surged forward, her form a blur of momentum and precision. She raised both hands, her fingers crackling with arcs of plasma-based lightning. A deafening crack erupted as the lightning bolt launched from her palms, tearing through the air at near-incomprehensible speed, its velocity splitting the sound barrier and sending thunder rolling across the streets of Shibuya.

Yet the Wendigo was no ordinary foe. Despite its grotesque size, it moved with an unnerving, arachnid-like agility. Its spectral form flickered, and in an instant, it phased through the solid ground, reemerging from a nearby shadow to effortlessly dodge the plasma strike. Its hollow, burning eyes glowed with amusement as its ghastly maw twisted into a mocking grin.

Wendigo: "Did you mortals truly believe lightning could defeat me?"

The words clawed at the air, venomous and dripping with disdain.

But before the echo of its taunt could fade, Katsuki was already in motion. In a fraction of a second, he disappeared, leaving behind only a gust of wind and a rapidly expanding shockwave that cracked the pavement beneath him. The world blurred as he dashed toward the still-crackling plasma bolt, catching it mid-flight with ease. The sheer speed of his movements ignited the air around him, violet flames licking at his shadowy figure as if reality itself couldn't keep up.

Then, Katsuki accelerated further, his figure becoming little more than a ravenous streak of black and violet light streaking across Shibuya's skyline. He wove through the bustling city, darting between skyscrapers, alleys, and streets, circling the entirety of the metropolis. Each lap built more and more kinetic energy, the plasma bolt growing brighter in his grasp, crackling wildly like a caged storm.

To bystanders, his movements were little more than a fleeting ripple, a gust of wind carrying a phantom-like figure. The air hummed with the sound of his velocity, a deep, resonating tone like the roar of a jet engine mixed with the howl of an oncoming storm. Glass windows rattled and shattered as Katsuki's path warped the very fabric of the urban environment.

Twenty-five seconds later, he returned, skidding to a stop directly in front of the Wendigo. The kinetic force of his sudden halt sent ripples of distortion through the air, and cracks spider-webbed through the asphalt beneath his feet. His geometric shades glinted with an eerie light as he hurled the plasma bolt with all the energy he'd built.

The bolt screamed through the air, now transformed into a devastating surge of raw energy. It tore through the space between them with such ferocity that the atmosphere itself seemed to combust in its wake, leaving a trail of violet and electric blue light that seared the sky.

The Wendigo had no time to react. It barely turned its ghastly skull toward the incoming attack before the bolt collided with it, detonating on impact. A cataclysmic explosion erupted, the shockwave rippling outward and leveling everything within its radius. Daylight was momentarily consumed by the flash, bathing the streets in an unearthly glow.

Katsuki stood firm, his jaw mask still crackling with violet flames as he straightened his posture. His voice carried a calm confidence as the explosion settled into a smoldering crater where the Wendigo once stood.

Katsuki: "You can run through shadows all you want, but you can't outrun me."

The ground rumbled as the massive Kuni no Kami strode into view, each step carving deep craters into the earth. Its form resembled a living monolith—jagged slabs of stone fused together with pulsating vines that twisted like veins. Its glowing emerald eyes stared down with an ancient, unrelenting menace, exuding a silent promise of destruction.

From the other end of the battlefield, the wendigo groaned, rising from the impact crater that Hikari and Lila's attacks had left it in. Its flesh, pale and mottled, began to stitch itself together, sinew knitting back with horrifying speed.

The creature sneered, its voice a guttural rasp that sent shivers through the air.

"Mortals… If you think you've won, think again. I didn't come here alone."

With a snarl, it gestured to the towering Earth Spirit.

"When the Yokai Hybrid of War is here, there won't be any one-on-one fights."

Hikari and Lila stepped forward, their expressions unflinching.

"Good," Hikari said, cracking her knuckles. "We'll handle the wendigo. You two…" She shot a glance over her shoulder at Lyra and Katsuki. "Take the rock monster."

"Gladly," Katsuki said, his voice distorted through the phantom-like jaw mask that had materialized over his face. Violet flames danced along his raven-black hair, flowing like liquid shadows, and his jagged geometric shades pulsed with an eerie luminescence. Each movement of his body sent ripples of energy across the battlefield, as if the world itself struggled to keep up with him.

Beside him, Lyra grinned, electricity crackling along her frame like a living aura. Her honey-blonde hair seemed to glow faintly in the storm of her energy, star-shaped clips sparking as if charged with her power. She rolled her shoulders and let her fingers flex, the hum of voltage growing louder with every breath she took.

"Guess we're up," she said, tilting her head toward Katsuki. "You ready, babe?"

"Always," Katsuki replied, his smirk hidden but audible through his tone.

In a flash, they launched forward, their combined energy tearing through the air like a thunderclap. Katsuki's speed distorted the very fabric of reality, and for a moment, he appeared as a blur, warping in and out of existence. But then, something unusual happened. His movements shifted, his breakneck pace slowing ever so slightly—not because of a lack of power, but because of precision. He matched Lyra's speed perfectly, their momentum synchronizing in a display of unspoken trust.

Their advance became a dazzling spectacle of light and motion. Katsuki left behind streaks of violet flames that curled like serpents, twisting in the air before dissipating into nothingness. Lyra, meanwhile, was a comet of crackling blue light, her electricity illuminating the battlefield like a second sun. Together, they were chaos and elegance, destruction and precision, a storm embodied in two beings.

The Kuni no Kami reacted instantly, raising a massive, vine-covered arm that shimmered with crystalline mineral growths. The spirit swung down with the force of a mountain, but Katsuki phased through the strike as if the gargantuan limb didn't exist, his form flickering between dimensions.

"Too slow," he growled, appearing above the creature's shoulder.

Lyra surged forward in the same breath, her hands outstretched as arcs of electricity danced between her fingers.

"Catch!" she yelled, sending a blinding bolt of energy directly into the Earth Spirit's torso. The force of the impact was enough to stagger the massive entity, its glowing green eyes dimming momentarily as its rocky form crackled under the assault.

Katsuki followed up immediately, a trail of violet flames spiraling around his body as he descended like a missile. His fist collided with the spirit's back, and the resulting shockwave tore through the ground, shattering boulders and uprooting trees in a wide radius. The Kuni no Kami roared, its body trembling from the combined force of their attacks.

Landing beside Lyra, Katsuki's jagged shades caught the flicker of electricity still crackling in the air around her. He gave her a quick glance, his smirk now visible beneath the faint flicker of his jaw mask.

"Not bad, huh?"

"Eh," Lyra teased, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear as sparks crackled around her. "Try to keep up, Speed Demon."

"Oh, I'm keeping up," Katsuki said, his tone laced with playful confidence. "You're the one playing catch-up."

They dashed forward like twin storms, a blur of speed and fury that tore through the battlefield. The Kuni no Kami's colossal limbs swung with earth-shattering force, but for every devastating blow, they vanished, only to reappear in blinding flashes of light and fire, delivering strikes that cracked the very air.

The Earth Spirit faltered, its movements growing sluggish under the relentless onslaught. Each swing was slower than the last, its massive frame quaking as the ground beneath it fractured.

The battlefield pulsed with energy, an electric symphony of thunder and flames. Katsuki's voice cut through the chaos, low and savage.

"Let's end this."

Lyra's grin was feral, her electric-blue eyes burning with raw power.

"About time."

With a roar, they launched into the air, their auras colliding in a blinding vortex of violet and blue. The sky itself seemed to crack as their combined energy spiraled downward, aimed at the heart of the Kuni no Kami.

The battlefield erupted in a deafening explosion of power—and then silence. Dust and smoke billowed into the air, obscuring the crater where the Earth Spirit had stood.

And then, from the shadows of the smoke, a low, guttural growl echoed.

"Did you think it would be that easy?"