The cube disappears, and the blood falls to the ground. Ame runs over with her med kit and tries to help Hiro.

--- Chapter 68 ---

Ame manages to heal some wounds using a mixture of potions. She bandages the remaining wounds up.

Hiro: Thanks, Ame.

Ame: No problem.

As they speak the world is seemingly shifting. The marks in the ground are seemingly removed. They look around, and spot each other, as well as Elias who is also looking around, and Sole, staring the doctor down. The doctor looks at them, smiles, then laughs a bit.

Doctor: So you dumped them all on me huh? So be it, this will be a welcomed demo run.

Sole: Demo run?

Doctor: Every experiment, or creation needs one.

Sole: What experiment are you referencing.

Doctor: Right, I’ll be straight forward, not one for small talk. I’m only in the Tenyi to have protection and free trial runs. For protection I gave them my experiments at their disposal. The experiments being the kids you have been slaughtering.

They all take a defensive stance, as if they think he's bent on revenge.

Doctor: Now now, don't get it twisted. I dont give two shits about those kids. I'm a greedy person, I experimented on them for my own sake, any doctor who makes medicine or vaccine tests on lab rats or monkeys before using it themselves, that's just how we are, except mine was arcana based, removing and adding.

Hiro: Thats-

Doctor: I haven't finished yet. By experimenting, giving these kids power, hope, anything they want they were really giving me what I want. Astra, Sunna, Sirius, Stacy, they were all pawns in my game.

Elias: And what about Nero.

Doctor: He was my disciple. Unlike them he was more or less useful, depending on how you look at it. He was a smart boy, smarter than the other two at least.

Elias: Other two?

Doctor: Every one with stories and knowledge to share should entrust it to multiple people. Lifes crazy, anything can happen, you can live normally, and then be drugged and on my dissection table in a matter of moments. But they both have moved on to “grander endeavours”.

He starts laughing to himself.

Doctor: Well, thanks to my arcana, they wouldn't be drugged at all. My arcana, Amalgamation, allows me to dissect, assimilate, combine, and so on any living thing, and they won't die of any means. Especially helpful when it comes to “Dying of shock”. Dissection is such a waste of anesthesia.

Elias: You monster!

Doctor: Well, at this point I really have to agree with you. Just look at my arms AHAHAHAAA!

He lifts his sleeves up further, with multiple skin tones connected roughly down his arm, flaps of skin, almost like eyelids. He rips his shirt, exposing a large glass dome on his stomach. He pulls his gloves off revealing seals on his hands, similar to that of the Sataro clan. This man truly is an amalgamation.

Doctor: Well I must say there was, one, experiment I had done on Nero. But he was willing to undergo such a painful treatment. Making one's body able to handle Raw mana.

The glass dome on his stomach begins to gain a reddish white fluid inside. Liquid raw mana.

Doctor: I'm sure you all know what raw mana does to the human body. Especially you.

He says pointing at Hiro.

Doctor: Now, we will commence our trial run, in 3, 2, -

His sentence is cut from Sole bursting forward at him.

Doctor: 1.

Sole swings his sword at him, but he disappears. Sole suddenly realizes slashes all over his body, followed by a kick to the back of his head. The doctor falls to the ground on his feet as Sole stumbles forward.

Sole: The slashes. I couldn't even sense his mana. Even with the mass amount in his stomach. When he did this before I saw an eye open on his arm. Could it give him speed? No. If it was speed there would be at least a trace. If it was teleportation, then how the slashes? If he teleported all around me slashing there would be a trace as well.

Soles wounds heal. The doctor looks back.

Doctor: I will try not to injure you too much. I've never dissected something like you before.

Sole: …

Sole silently glares at him. Sole runs in and slashes, but he disappears again. Hiros body erupts with blood from unforeseen slashes. Ame sees this in horror and quickly looks for him, but as she spun around, the doctor grabs her face, and electrocutes her, her body falls limp as he drops her. She is still breathing, but heavily damaged. Elias summons his weapons and dashes in. The doctor raises his blade to him and begins parrying Elias’s attacks.

Elias: You blade, its sataro made.

Doctor: Indeed it is.

Elias: But can yours do this?

He cracks a smile.

Elias: ECLIPSE BLADES, COME FORTH!

The blades turn to eclipse mode, and he begins a faster, stronger assault of various slashes. The doctor keeps up fairly well.

Doctor: It seems I don't need them too. Ehe.

Elias brings his blades up, releasing a powerful special attack. The doctor disappears and reappears behind him. Various slashes appear around Elias. But Elias smiles.

Elias: So, how was it Hiro.

He looks at Hiro with his eye glowing.

Hiro: No footsteps, none at all.

Elias: As I thought.

He turns around. He shifts his eyes to Sole gloatingly before looking back at the Doctor.

Doctor: Hm?

Elias: Your power. Or, your stolen power. When that eye on your arm opens, you're able to stop time as long as it's open. That's why Hiro detected no movement, and you're able to attack.

Doctor: Wow, your pretty smart kid. Maybe you should be one of my disciples as well.

Elias: No chance.

Doctor: It was worth a shot. The eye was from my war days. I was a medic of course, going through the boring routine, until I was “interested”. Those I was interested in, sadly didn't make it. I wrote them off as dead, and they were “cremated”, aka I took them to dissect. One poor soldier was cursed with this power. When he opens his eyes fully, the world freezes in a single moment. This gave him a chronic dry eye, and the curse to never see a world in motion. Sad stuff really. So I relieved him of this burden hehehe.

Elias: You're truly despicable. But you're not as smart as you think.

Doctor: Is that so?

Elias looks at sole, then to Ame and Hiro. Sole nods. Sole swiftly darts over and picks them up, and jumps away. Elias Jumps into the sky.

Elias: Light and Dark, shatter the world in your eternal eclipse!

He crosses the blade above his head. Before throwing tsukuyomi down to the ground below, and amaterasu above. Darkness erupts from the ground, and blasts of light from above. sandwiching the area with its energy. The energy grows and consumes. Eventually it comes to a halt and Fizzles out. He looks around for the doctor but doesn't see him.

Doctor: You are smart, you realized I can only stop time as long as the eye is open, so a dry eye would cause it to close while getting out of your range. It's too bad I have abilities to help escape such a predicament.

He swings his fist around, punching Elias’s face, sending him plummeting to the ground. He looks up to see the doctor somewhat damaged, with one eye on his body exploded, it clicks in his head what that trick he used was. His ace in the hole. Elias uses his remaining strength, getting up and walking over to Hiro. He collapses into him, and leans into his ear.

Elias: His power, kill him, over and over. He can heal back to normal by destroying assimilated parts.

Hiro nods and rests him on the ground, still wounded and bleeding from earlier. Hiro and Ame look at eachother, unspoken yet they knew what eachother were thinking. Ame grabs her rectangle and it changes into a minigun. Hiro puts his hand on his chest, summoning his best blade.

Hiro: You, killed so many people. Those seals, those swords. You killed sataro’s.

Doctor: Indeed I did hehe, I’ve already completed my research on it however, your corpse will not be needed.

Ame: That Stacy guy. He told me everything. That you… That you killed so many of my kind. Of my family. For knowledge. That, that's just UNFORGIVABLE!!!

Hiro Pulls the sword from the sheath, the blade coated in blue energy. The energy swirls around him. Her gun begins turning at a fast pace, a ball forming at the edge. Hiro bursts forward at immense speeds. No. Incomprehensible speeds, anger in his steps. He stops below him, stomping into the ground creating a massive crater. Stones fly up from the ground. He bursts upward onto one of the stones, and as he lands it bursts below him, but he keeps jumping to the different stones rising to where he is, and slashes into him. He continuously slashes into him over and over, each time flying to a new stone and leaping back for more. Each slash cutting him in half, and then reconnecting him back together with one less part. Then on his last hit he goes right behind him, and cuts down the middle. His parts reconnect.

Ame: MAXIMUM OUTPUT! GIGARAY!

She pulls the trigger as a large beam blasts through his head. His head reforms and Hiro from behind grabs his neck and throws him full force into the ground. He smashes into the ground and bounces up a bit. Then at fast speeds Sole grabs him by the neck flying with him to the side. The doctor swiftly grabs Soles hand, sending reddish white electricity into it. Sole lets go, and the doctor spins around, his pectoral muscle opens like bomb bay doors as nozzles come from each side. The nozzles begin to glow the reddish white, and he begins to laugh. But Sole cuts his laugh short by slicing his sword to the side, cutting the orb on his stomach. It begins to crackle and glow, but Hiro quickly zooms through, grabbing Sole and effectively saving him as the Doctor explodes and reforms. They screech to a halt and Sole looks over at the non deformed doctor. He wields his sword with two hands and raises it above his head.

Sole: 100% muscle usage, DIVINE RETRIBUTION!

He swings it down with incredible force, the tip burying in the ground. It releases a monumental blast of energy at the doctor, who simply evaporates. The size of this attack is so big and powerful that the world begins to distort and crack around him. As the attack finishes, they cannot see the doctor, and they don't think he will bother them anymore.