Pride's Origin

Chapter 11 - Development

    A weak smile made its way across Rikona’s face and Kura seeing this couldn’t keep her eyes from welling up and flew right into her sister’s chest, who, with Makoto, all fell to the ground with a thud.

    “Rikona!? Y-You’re alive! I thought you’d left me, that I was all alone!” Kura was acting like a little girl at this point. Crying with reckless abandon in the arms of her older sister, who patted her head with a warm smile to calm her down.

    Nowhere could you find the mistress of death that exerted her dominance over everyone present, or those left.

    “I’ve got to get out of here, these girls aren’t normal, and that damn Director didn’t say a thing about this! F*ck! I’ve lost all my men on this!” The commander from before was still alive and was cursing while thinking of a way to leave while they were preoccupied.

    “I should’ve known that something was wrong when he wanted a squad to take down 2 women!” He spotted the director with a solemn expression and tried to slowly make his way over. He looked all over as he walked, his face paled as he did so.

    Nothing but bodies littered the ground, some of his men had blood leaking from their mouths as they laid there. The entire scene was as grisly as it could be. Indeed, the things he saw today were the stuff of nightmares.

    “Gulp.”

    The commander swallowed whatever was stuck in his throat as he saw hope through this distraction. Praising and cursing that soldier that his shot didn’t kill Rikona, the commander tried to sneak his way over.

    However, before he started to move, that same voice that sent a chill up his spine sounded once again.

    “And just where do you think you’re going?”

    The director looked up and saw Kura leaving her sister’s embrace, staring down the Commander who was making his way over.

    “Don’t think that you’re leaving here alive after your sin, Concentrated shock wa-”

    “Stop!”

    With a gun in hand from one of the now incapacitated soldiers, the shout from the director stopped Kura in her tracks for just a moment as she spared him only a side glance.

    “I’ll deal with you later, wash your neck and wait for me.”

    She shifted her attention back to the commander, who was beyond terrified at this point.

    “Is it wrong that I think your little sister looks even hotter than normal right now? Ow!” Makoto couldn’t help but say while supporting Rikona. This remark nonetheless brought an elbow from the latter.

    “Damn it! Ow! Alright, sorry sheesh! I won’t say anything about your hot younger sister… OW!”

    Rikona, after landing another blow on Makoto, stared at Kura taking in the entire situation.

    “This is bad. She may have just been crying in my arms a while ago, but those tears have already dried. The more she uses her abilities, the more it feels like I’m losing her somehow.”

    Rikona saw that Kura’s mannerism was changing the more and more she drew on her power. Becoming more prideful, more conceited, as though any value towards anything else in her eyes was getting less and less.

    Rikona didn’t know why, but somewhere inside her. Somewhere maybe in the heart of her psyche told her that this was bad, really bad.

    “s**t!”

    When Kura’s focus found the commander once more, the latter couldn’t help but let out a curse under his breath.

    His grip tightened, and he suddenly felt the cold steel in his hands. With that he just remembered that he still had his gun and that the girls, absent the bat s**t hell they just conjured up, could still be wounded.

    He wasted no time with this and rushed to take aim at Kura before she could act, and he released several shots in succession.

    Ba-Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

    Heart, stomach, head, like a true professional, the most vital areas were squared away in an instant. A few more were even added in for good measure.

    Several bullets hit the body, and the last one hit her forehead, which caused Kura’s head to snap back from the impact.

    “Yes! Now to get out of here before the other one goes bat s**t cra-”

    “Pressure,” a calm voice interrupted his own, stripping him of the power to make any further movements.

    Slowly, one could see Kura’s head return in place to face the commander.

    “Wh-What the hell are you!?”

    The commander was understandably shaken when he saw this. The only evident change was a faint mark in between her brows, smaller than a mosquito bite and an expression that only grew more severe.

    His knees buckled from the pressure, and he knelt there as her feet slowly left the ground, floating closer to where he was.

    The silence as she hovered to where he knelt was both terrifying and suffocating for everyone witnessing it.

    “God help me,” his fear riddled cry broke the silence as he forced him to look upon her as she lingered there.

    “You know, I don’t blame you for what you did,” Kura’s cold voice came once again. “You just wanted to live. However, in the words of one of my most favourite characters, ‘if God wanted you to live, he would not have created me.’ Concentrated Shockwave.”

    When she said this, she turned away and headed over to where the Director was standing while the Commander simply spasmed a few times then fell forward, his cry for help forever unanswered.

    The gun in Director Shihai’s hands fell to the ground. She was practically bulletproof now. How do you fight against that?

    “So this is how my life ends? Hehe, guess I bit off more than I could chew,” the old Director laughed at his own foolishness.

    40 meters, 35 meters, 30 meters, Kura was slowly closing the distance between her and the Director.

    “Listen, we need to stop my sister, and fast!” Rikona came to a decision after seeing the proceedings. “If she keeps this up, we won’t get her back, she needs a stronger mind, a stronger will for this.”

    “What are you talking about? Her mind seems pretty strong to me. By the way, isn’t that ‘if for wanted you to live he wouldn’t have created me’ from that manga? Why does she even know that? Wait… why do I?” Makoto argued back after questioning some mundane things at the end.

    “Listen to me, you i***t! How long have you known Kura? When could you imagine that she would kill another person without batting an eye, much less slaughtering all these men?” She fiercely glared at Makoto with this before continuing.

    “Don’t get me wrong, the situation as it is, calls for tough handling, but from what I know, when we first realised what we were and embraced it without reserve, our mindsets’ changed,” she looked straight at him as she spoke.

    “We treated regular humans as lessers, which is why we treated you as we did before. However, when you said that you’d come with us, contrary to our expectations, you showed us that humans are capable in more ways than one, and that shift in mindset afforded us more control over ourselves.”

    She started to stand on her own two feet as she kept explaining, feeling much better than before, “S-She unlocked a much greater power than ever before, and it is forcing her to mindset to regress to what it was more, and the confliction between what she knows and what she is, is not something that we want to see the end of. Hence, why we need a strong mind and will to do this, so we don’t lose ourselves. We must be prideful, for this drives our power but we can’t let it burn us away if you can understand what I’m saying.”

    “I don’t really get it, but the longer she’s like that, the worse it gets right?” When Makoto got a nod of confirmation, that was all he needed. “So how do we stop her? She kinda got the whole evil superman flying style going on if you haven’t noticed.”

    “I think I just need to reach out to her before she reaches the Director. I mean I don’t like the man, but I don’t want to lose my sister even more.”

    Rikona headed towards her sister with Makoto in tow, however, before she could get any closer, a massive explosion went off between Director and the ever-looming Kura, slowing her down immensely.

    The shock wave from the explosion sent Rikona and Makoto tumbling to the ground before they could get any closer.

    “Bastard! Where the hell did that come from!?” Makoto cursed as he was trying to get up while supporting Rikona as well.

    “Well, this scene tells me that this was handled in a less than adequate fashion. Yokubo, is that you I see over there? Looks like you didn’t follow my advice when I told you to hold back I see.”

    A handsome man in his early 30s appeared on the field with a black-haired beauty by his right side and a large stern-looking man with multiple scars on his left.

    “Machyal!”

    The name the Director just shouted was indeed Cheever Machyal, the mysterious head researcher at the facility and the backing that was always behind Mayuri.

    “Yes Yokubo it is I, and please, no shouting, please. I’m still a bit tired after rushing over,” He said in a relaxed tone as if there wasn’t someone floating in the air a few metres away from him.

    On that note, however, his eyes slid over to the suspended Kura and Rikona who had gotten up a bit further.

    His eyes flashed with greed and desire as he smiled then stated, “Hello Kura, Rikona, this is quite a surprise. However, I can’t have you killing the Director, you see. I have need of him, through a contact of mine.”

    “It is not your place to tell me who I can kill from who I can't. Step aside, little one,” Kura coolly replied, with nary a change in expression.

    “Ooh, arrogant there aren’t we? Be careful there,” he laughed when he saw and heard this and looked to the man beside him and requested “I’ll be needing your help it seems.”

    As he said this, the bulky man stepped out and walked towards Kura. The sphere that was beside her trembled, as she wordlessly sent out the pressure at the same level of power that suppressed the soldiers before, yet, the man’s movements were undaunted.

    Kura’s expression changed at the sight of this, as she whispered to herself.

    “Talium…”