Chapter 211 : Duet of Hellfire and a Dragon's Soul

"I WON'T LET YOU!"

Endeavor's roar was not just a shout; it was a decree declared by a god of fire. The entire damp underground cavern trembled, not from structural damage, but from the pure vibration of the power he was gathering. The air around the Number One Hero warped and shimmered from the incredible heat. The flames on his body were no longer orange or red, but had turned a blinding blue-white, a sign that he was preparing an attack on its most destructive level. His eyes were locked on the escaping Yozakura submarine, a look of pure hatred from a king whose territory had been violated.

From Tatsumi's perspective, the world seemed to move in slow motion. He saw all the elements with a terrifying clarity. He saw the submarine's cargo ramp almost completely closed. He saw Slither on the conning tower, his face filled with panic as he screamed orders. He saw Akame and Leone take defensive stances, preparing for the inevitable impact. And he saw Endeavor, now a miniature sun, ready to explode.

His analytical mind—the ever-calculating soul of the earthling—immediately processed the scenario. An attack on the scale of a Prominence Burn in a confined space like this would have unimaginable consequences. The heat would instantly boil the water in the entire bay, creating a steam explosion (a BLEVE phenomenon) that would have the force equivalent to a massive conventional bomb. The explosion would not only destroy the submarine but would also collapse the entire cavern, burying them all—heroes and villains—under millions of tons of rock and seawater. It wasn't an attack. It was an act of mass annihilation born of rage.

"STOP! DON'T DO IT!"

Tatsumi didn't know where he found the strength. His battered body, his depleted energy, his armor that was nothing more than dead metal—all of it was forgotten. Driven by the echo of the hero's soul within him that refused to let everyone die in vain, he ran. He ran straight towards Endeavor, towards that firestorm.

The heat was so intense that the soles of his boots began to melt on the steel floor. He could feel his exposed skin blistering. Akame and Leone could only watch in horror, too shocked by his reckless act to react.

Tatsumi reached Endeavor and without hesitation, grabbed the Number One Hero's flame-wreathed arm. An incredible burning sensation shot through his hand, but he didn't let go.

"ENDEAVOR-SAN, STOP!" he shouted, his voice hoarse from the heat and desperation.

For a moment, Endeavor looked like he was about to strike him, but the sudden physical touch and the conviction-filled shout managed to pierce through his fog of rage. He looked down, his blazing eyes staring at the boy who dared to touch him.

"GET OUT OF MY WAY, KID!" Endeavor growled.

"THERE'S ANOTHER WAY!" Tatsumi retorted, not releasing his grip. "DON'T DESTROY EVERYTHING! WE CAN STOP IT!"

"WHAT OTHER WAY?!" Endeavor challenged, though the intensity of his flames lessened slightly as he was forced to think.

"The submarine needs the sea to escape!" Tatsumi explained quickly, his brain working at full speed. "The dock doors! The giant steel doors at the end of the bay! If we can destroy their locking mechanism, we can collapse them! We can seal them in here! We can trap them!"

It was a plan born of pure desperation, a crazy idea. But it wasn't a suicidal one. It was a strategic solution, not a blind rampage. The idea managed to break through Endeavor's anger and touch the warrior and tactician's instinct within him. He glanced at the giant dock doors at the end of the cavern, then back at Tatsumi.

At that exact moment, several hatches on the submarine's deck opened. The remaining PLF soldiers began to lay down covering fire, while from underwater, two torpedoes shot towards them.

"Akame! Leone!" Tatsumi shouted, now taking the role of a field commander. "Give us cover! Stop those torpedoes!"

Akame and Leone didn't need to be told twice. Akame shot along the edge of the dock, throwing her strong steel wire into the water, hoping to foul the torpedoes' propellers. Leone, with a震動 roar, leaped directly into the water, her powerful body becoming a living shield, ready to punch the torpedo if she had to.

Endeavor looked at Tatsumi, a new flash of understanding in his eyes. "That door... it's made of a ten-meter-thick titanium alloy, designed to withstand deep-sea pressure."

"Then," Tatsumi said, staring at the same door. "We'll just have to hit it harder."

He knew what he had to do. His armor was dead. His body was on the verge of collapse. But there was one last source of power he had yet to touch. Not from Incursio. Not from his physique. But from his very core. From the dragon's soul itself.

"I will melt the hinges," Endeavor growled, accepting the crazy plan. "You will be the one to break it."

"GET BACK, KID!" Endeavor ordered. This time, it wasn't an order of dismissal, but one of cooperation.

Tatsumi leaped back as Endeavor unleashed a concentrated blast of Hellflame, a spear of blue-white fire that struck directly at the giant hinge mechanism on the left side of the dock door. The alloy metal began to glow red, then white, groaning and warping under the unimaginable heat.

That's when Tatsumi closed his eyes. He ignored the sound of gunfire, the explosion from Leone successfully punching a torpedo, and Endeavor's roars. He looked within himself. He felt the three souls residing there. He no longer tried to separate them. He unified them. The analytical mind of the earthling, the warrior's heart of Night Raid, and the primal rage of the Tyrant. All became one.

The silvery spiderweb pattern all over his body erupted in a brilliant emerald-green light. The energy came not from the armor, but from within him, piercing through the dead metal plates. Around his unprotected right arm, an illusion, a spectral manifestation of Incursio's gauntlet formed from pure green energy.

He opened his eyes, and they now glowed with the same draconic light. He let out a roar that was no longer entirely human, an echo of an ancient dragon now awakened.

"NOW!" Endeavor shouted, having heated the hinge to its melting point.

With a strength he should not have possessed, Tatsumi shot forward. Each step he took dented the steel floor beneath him. He reached the white-hot dock door and slammed his green-energy-wreathed fist right into the molten hinge.

There was no big explosion. Just a deep, satisfying CRACK, the sound of something immense finally breaking. The hinge shattered into pieces.

For a moment, the giant, thousand-ton dock door tilted, hanging on its still-intact right hinge. Then, with a heart-wrenching groan of metal, the door collapsed, falling into the water with a colossal THUD that created a massive wave throughout the bay. The exit was sealed.

Tatsumi fell to his knees, panting, the spectral energy on his arm vanishing, leaving him utterly drained.

In the now-quiet cavern, there was only the sound of lapping water and the hum of the trapped submarine's engines. Slither, on the conning tower, stared at the collapsed door with an expression of horror and disbelief.

They had done it. They had trapped the submarine.

But as a momentary relief washed over them, a new sound began to be heard. A low, powerful hum originating from within the submarine. The temperature in the cavern began to drop rapidly. A thin layer of ice began to form on the water's surface around the submarine, spreading outwards with unnatural speed, hissing as it met the hot metal left by Endeavor's fire.

Akame, who had just returned to Tatsumi's side, stared at the submarine that was now beginning to be encased in ice. "We managed to lock it in the cage..." she whispered in horror.

Tatsumi, leaning on Akame to support his body, finished the sentence in his mind, a thought filled with an overwhelming sense of dread.

...with us.