AOMR 28

The explosion was followed by a deafening silence, broken only by the faint crackling of flames and the distant wail of alarms. Overhead lights dimmed and crackled as they lost power from their source and had to depend on another weaker source.

Kenta’s senses sharpened as the heat intensified, his draconic instincts flaring to life. He could feel the oppressive weight of the far-off presence, even from this distance, a suffocating pressure that made the air itself tremble. It was a sensation he had never experienced before, a force so vast and unrelenting that it seemed to defy the very laws of nature.

Null’s voice cut through the tension, sharp and commanding. “What is happening?!” he barked, his tone laced with both fury and fear. Kenta could hear the faint rustle of fabric as Null turned, likely to face Number One. “Is this part of the plan?!”

Number One’s reply was calm, but Kenta could detect the faintest tremor in his voice. “No. This is… unexpected. Yamamoto has proven to be exactly as strong as expected, yet bound by some kind of code that would slow him down. With our calculations, we should have had a bit of time before he got here.”

“What changed?” Null asked with a hiss, and Number One remained silent for long seconds, his hand to his ear as he listened to a message come in from his earpiece. The longer he listened, the more Number One’s heart skipped and missed beats as the snakelike bastard began to hyperventilate in fear.

“Talk to me, Number One!” Null forcefully jerked the other man by grabbing onto his shirt and shaking him.

“O-our last reports say there’s nothing left.”

Null staggered back, unable to comprehend what he heard, unwilling to even believe it. Meanwhile, Kenta’s lips curled into a predatory grin. He had heard the report just as clearly as the older man. He had also heard whispers of Yamamoto during his time in captivity, a name spoken with a mix of reverence and dread. A man who had slain Behemoth, one of the Endbringers, and lived to tell the tale. A man who wielded flames that made an endbringer cry out in pain. And now, that man was here, tearing through the Yangban like a force of nature.

A man that had succeeded where Kenta had failed.

“What do you mean?” Null’s voice came out in a whisper.

“There is nothing above us for miles.” Number One stared up in horror as he spoke to his superior, his cold serpentine facade broken. “He suddenly changed things. Escalated on a level we didn’t expect... Beijing is no more.”

There was a long silence, a silence that was broken by Kenta’s laugh. A long, cold cackling that breathed through his cell and echoed out into the passage. A mad, demented laughter.

Null’s voice grew colder, his anger barely contained. “Then activate the contingency, speed things up with the girl. We are too deep into the earth for him to try breaking in with brute force. If he tries it, he’ll have to crack the earth open like an egg.” Neither of them mentioned how much of a possibility the act was. It was not even a doubt that the old man could do it, they simply believed the consequences would hold him back.

“Understood,” Number One replied, his tone low and broken, devoid of its earlier silkiness. “I will mobilize the reserves and initiate Protocol Omega. B-but I—” There was faltering in Number One’s voice. A fear that had simply not been there before.

“Speak, Number One!”

“I fear that the cost is getting too great. What if—”

“I don’t care about the cost!” Null snapped. “He has what we need. The power to actually kill Endbringers instead of simply surviving them. With that power in our hands, in my hands, we could fully depose the Empress Dowager and spread our reach. Not even the Protectorate would be a match for us then. The Boogeyman herself would run from us. Do you understand the extent of my goals now? It does not matter who or what we lose, as long as we get him.”

Kenta’s ears perked up at the mention of the girl. He had heard enough to piece together that she was the key to whatever the Yangban were planning. A cape so valuable that they had gone to great lengths to capture and brainwash her. And now, Yamamoto was here to retrieve her. The girl was in the vault, but more importantly, he knew where Number One would be.

The footsteps receded, leaving Kenta alone in the darkness once more. His mind raced as he considered his options. The Yangban were distracted, their forces divided. This was his chance—perhaps his only chance—to escape. But escape alone was not enough. He needed to strike back, to make them pay for what they had done to him. And if Yamamoto was as powerful as they said, then perhaps he could use that to his advantage.

Kenta’s muscles tensed as he prepared to break free from his bindings. The scales covering his body hardened, his strength surging to new heights. With a single, powerful motion, he shattered the chains that held him, the sound of metal snapping echoing through the cell. He rose to his feet, his body slowly transforming still. He was now a seven-foot behemoth of fire and scales, muscles and sinews hidden beneath glittering and ever-shifting scales. His eyes glowed with a feral light as he stepped toward the door, his claws gripping the smooth slab of iron that served as his prison cell. His claws slowly dug in, getting sharper by the second.

It had been over ten seconds since he broke out of his bindings, and the precautions the Yangban had put in place had still not activated, which meant that whatever had happened minutes ago had been so disastrous that it affected things this deep into the earth.

His claws dug even deeper as he had enough of a hold. His fanged maw twisted into a smile as a tongue that was all too long for his mouth slipped out, and with it, steam. He had not let loose this much since his disastrous battle against Leviathan in defense of his home. The Yangban had never seen him at full strength, with how their countermeasures were always too quick to sedate him anytime he so much as cracked his bindings.

With a flex of his hand and a low roar, the metal slab that served as the door to his cell was squeezed apart and torn asunder as he continued to pull on both ends, treating metal like hot bread until there was a path. Kenta let out a low chuckle as bipedal legs stepped out of the cell for the first time in months.

His head spun left and right in anticipation of a fight, but there was none, so he turned and began to stroll down the corridors with a beast-like gait. He turned into another corridor, but this one lacked the silence that had held the one he was coming from. Here, there was chaos. Yangban operatives rushed past, their faces pale with fear. Kenta moved silently, his massive form blending into the shadows as he stalked his prey. He could hear their panicked voices as they relayed orders, their words fragmented and hurried.

“—Falling back to the inner perimeter.”

“—Casualties are too high, we can’t hold him.”

“—Null wants the girl moved to the vault.”

Kenta’s grin widened. The vault. That was where they were keeping her. And if Null wanted her moved, it meant she was still alive. Still valuable. Still a bargaining chip.

He moved swiftly, his draconic senses guiding him through the labyrinthine complex. The heat grew more intense with every step, the air thick with the scent of smoke and burning flesh. The pressure was heavier, like gravity had suddenly decided to spare them its attention. Like they were beneath the eyes of something beyond their comprehension. Kenta shrugged it off with a feral grin as his power responded by growing heavier scales, increasing his muscles to better hold himself up as the vestiges of what should be a wing ripped out of his back. He could feel Yamamoto’s presence growing stronger, a beacon of destruction that drew him like a moth to a flame. He had to strangle the urge to turn to him and brawl his heart out. Instead, he continued on his path.

As he turned a corner, he came face-to-face with a group of Yangban operatives. Their eyes widened in shock as they saw him, their tinker-tech weapons trembling in their hands. Kenta didn’t give them a chance to react. With a roar, he lunged forward. His claws dug into the first woman, and a flex of his muscles later, she was ripped into two parts. Blood splattered the walls as he threw the bisected woman to the side. A bolt of energy slammed into him and tore its way past his scales, but the silver plating had done its job, dissipating the majority of the power so that it barely burned past the leathery skin beneath.

He slowly turned to the brave man who had shot him and spoke, his words slurred by a tongue that had no business forming speech. A barbed tongue whose only purpose was to shear meat off bone. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Already, the scales had begun to grow back, and he smiled at the fear on the man’s face. His head snapped out, his neck serpentine and long as he took a bite out of the man. A shake of his head later, and the man’s headless body was discarded to the side. Screams rang out as the rest shot haphazardly, but Kenta was a wolf in the midst of sheep, carving a path through them.

By the time he reached the vault, the corridor was littered with bodies. The door was sealed, but Kenta didn’t bother with subtlety. He slammed his fist into the reinforced steel, the impact sending shockwaves through the complex. The door barely buckled under the force, but it was no surprise. If it had fallen easily, it would not deserve its name as a vault. He struck it again and again, thunderous blows that shook it to its foundation, but the gate proved too stubborn and refused to break.

He changed tactics. He grabbed onto it, digging into the metal with his claws. The same claws that had parted the gate to his cell with disgusting ease took long seconds before they even got a good grip, before they dug deep enough with a tortured sound of screaming metal. Once Kenta was certain of his hold, he unhinged his jaw like a snake.

A heat had been building in his gullet for hours, a heat that he unleashed with a thunderous roar. Fire rushed out of his maw with such force that it almost blasted him back, but his grip on the vault held him firm. His inner eyelid, a transparent membrane, closed, blocking out the glare of the fire and allowing him to watch as it slowly melted the vault enterance to slag.

The vault was thick enough to block his senses entirely, but the more parts of it melted, the weaker its protections became, until he could hear two heartbeats. One beat in a steady rhythm that spoke of unconsciousness, and another pounded in a frantic hurry, desperate to escape its confines. If Kenta could, he would have smiled. Number One was all too close to him now, and he wanted his revenge. Revenge against the man and his brainwashing machine.

Unfortunately, his mouth was too busy breathing fire like a flamethrower. But the Yangban had taught him something he had not known before.

Patience.  

…

Sandaled feet tapped against reinforced concrete as Yamamoto made his way deeper into the earth. Another level passed. He left nothing in his wake—no bodies, no blood, no carnage. The only thing that could be found behind him was ash and burns on the ground where people once stood.

He had not bothered to swing his sword once since unleashing his Shikai. Its mere presence alone had been enough to burn the whelps who sought to pester him into ashes. They had grown more powerful and skilled since he turned the land above into a wasteland. The ones who had faced him since then had been stronger, more coordinated. Their abilities lay in bolstering their frail mortal forms and in shields and barriers that protected them from his pressure. But they never lasted.

Hails of ice fired at him as he cleared the staircase and reached an even lower level. A snowstorm was unleashed in the narrow confines of the corridor, like lightning in a bottle. Amidst it, two more fools appeared from either side of him, pressing together with the tips of their weapons pointed at him. Explosions of force rang out, the corridor flexing, losing solidity as it slowly twisted like mud to trap him. Everything happened at once. simultaneous attacks on a scale matched with enough power tha would have killed any other.

It did not matter.  

Yamamoto cracked his eyes open, and the two would-be assassins were the first to die in a grotesque explosion of flesh, their bodies unable to bear the pressure of his soul for longer than the split second it had taken them to appear at his side.

The hoarfrost that rapidly spread immediately turned to water, which evaporated a second later, unable to withstand the heat his sword emanated. This time, he swung his sword to the side. A lazy movement that dispelled the fog his evaporation of the hoarfrost had created. The act also forced the corridor to remain in place, the heat reacting with the mud-like texture and hardening it beyond manipulation. Then the blast wave rang out, the sonic boom generated from that single swing obliterating everything in its path—including the terrain shifter and the ice bringer.

Yamamoto moved on without sparing another glance at his surroundings. Instead, a slight furrow formed on his weathered features. A barely noticeable wrinkle on his face that spoke of annoyance.

Minutes after releasing his Shikai, the child’s reiatsu signature had been moved for a few seconds before suddenly winking out.

He knew she was not dead, but somehow, they had placed her somewhere outside his ability to sense. Considering his range spanned the entire world, Yamamoto pinned the thought. A more likely explanation was that some strange power was interfering with his ability to sense reiatsu. Another possibility—an outlandish one. He was Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto. His refinement of reiatsu control and sensing was greater than whatever borrowed power the superpowered whelps of this world possessed.

Perhaps there was a better way.

He slowly closed his eyes, and with that act, his spiritual pressure vanished, reigned in like an obedient beast corralled back into its cage, clinging tightly to his frame and bound by his rigid control and iron grip. Gone was the overwhelming pressure that made people die in his presence. Gone was the force that made the very sky twist and bend in confusion and fear. Gone were the flames that burned hotter than anything the earth had experienced.

Now, all that remained was a seemingly old man, his blade once more hidden in the cane in his hands.

His footsteps led him down another hallway where six more of the red-clad capes stood. Figures he had obliterated by the dozens today alone.

The six figures stood shell-shocked, confused and distracted, unable to reconcile the image before them with what they had heard, felt, and experienced.

“Where is she?” Yamamoto asked. His attempt at gentility and civility barely hid the overwhelming warlord beneath.

As one, the six people pointed to a specific pathway, and Yamamoto gave them a nod in response before walking past their still and frozen forms.

The stick and the carrot. A method as old as time. Utilize the stick and break them so hard that when you decided to use the carrot, your opponents would cry and thank you for your understanding and kindness.

His footsteps led him into the new hallway that had been pointed out to him, and at the end of it was a simple door. Yamamoto pushed it open to reveal the girl he sought. Her pale features looked clammy beneath the flickering fluorescent light above. Dark circles under her eyes spoke of restlessness.

Yamamoto walked up to the child, her sleeping figure resting on a simple medical bed with a white cloth covering the rest of her body. Yamamoto ignored the empty room and the eerie air. Instead, he walked up to the sleeping figure and stopped directly beside her bed.

It took him a split second to realize, given how tightly he controlled his reiatsu, but he detected it the moment the delicate hand hidden beneath the covers snapped out and seized his wrist. The child’s eyes fluttered open, but the gaze that met his was not that of the child he knew. Every detail had been meticulously replicated, down to the burns she had tried so desperately to conceal from him. Yet what betrayed the figure was something it could not replicate—its reiryoku.  

Yamamoto stared down at the figure, his eyebrow raised in mild surprise, a flicker of amusement dancing in his stern eyes at the sheer audacity of the imposter. The small, childlike lips parted, and a voice that was distinctly masculine, deep and grating, spilled forth as the figure straightened from its seated position.

“I’ve got you,” the figure sneered.

The child's face twisted into a mad grin as the figure straightened. A man’s voice, filled with greed, hunger, and triumph, spilled from her mouth.

"Now share it with me. Let me feel—"

The words choked off in a strangled gasp as the figure spasmed, instinctively recoiling. But Yamamoto was infinitely faster. His palm left the cane as his grip snapped shut around the figure’s forearm, holding it in place and maintaining the contact. His eyes cracked open, curious dark red eyes beneath his heavy brows as he observed the writhing, convulsing imposter.

He had felt it the moment their hands met. A disgusting tendril, slithering, seeking to latch onto him.

It had hesitated in surprise for a second, when it failed to siphon power from a fellow shard as it had with hundreds of others before now. For Yamamoto was not like the rest. But the shard lodged in the man’s head was more tenacious than its wielder, adapting, searching, making desperate compromises to anchor itself to something—anything to fulfil it's owners directive.

And then, it found something old.

Something primal in its simplicity.

Something that beat with the heart of a star.

It touched Ryūjin Jakka.  

The figure’s scream was deafening, a raw, guttural sound that tore through its vocal cords, sending droplets of blood spraying into the air. The child’s form twisted and contorted, flesh and bone reshaping as the figure reverted to its true form—a man clad in black robes, his face twisted in agony. Yet his agony was not his alone.

Hundreds screamed with him.

Through the tendrils, through the immaterial chains binding him to others, Ryūjin Jakka spread like wildfire, devouring all in its path. Yamamoto had found the central node.  

The old man chuckled, a deep, grandfatherly sound, warm and amused.

“Oh, you fool.”

His grip tightened, and the flames of Ryūjin Jakka roared louder, engulfing more than the figure in its blaze of purifying fire. The shard connected to his head screamed just as loud as it cut itself from the network, yet that brief spike of pain before it did the needful had been felt by every other shard, as every single cape in the world froze for a single second in confusion.

The man in black robes writhed, his ability to scream destroyed as the man spontaneously combusted.

Yamamoto’s eyes slowly closed as his amusement faded into something colder. “You sought to steal from the flames of hell itself,” he said, his voice a rumble, like stones grinding against each other. “It is not often I am met with such levels of hubris and vanity.”

He released his grip on the foolish whelp as he turned away. The fool was dead, and he was still in search of a child. As amusing as the distraction had been, Yamamoto was still focused on recovering the child he had let slip away.