I Don't Want to Lose (Third Release!)

Q Dalang was instantly scared out of his wits.

And the one who had seized such a perfect opportunity to land those precise shots was, of course, the firearms expert from the Kure Clan—Kure Fusui.

Through Shiraki Uke's earpiece, she had heard about how Q Dalang had slaughtered villagers and taken their children away for human experimentation, and she had built up quite a bit of anger.

So, at the end, Kure Fusui had sent two bullets Q Dalang's way—to keep Lodem from hearing his voice.

"Go to hell, scum!"

Fifth floor, office.

"It's over..."

Hearing thundering footsteps from upstairs, Yagyou clasped his hands behind his back and murmured, "Lord Kokonoe is certain to die—killed by Lodem, whom he raised himself."

"...Not necessarily."

Shiraki Uke suddenly spoke up beside him. He was still warming up with squats, keeping the muscles throughout his body warm.

"You can't lie in front of Usogui."

Shiraki Uke jerked his chin toward Baku Madarame, indicating him to Yagyou. "We've already said goodbye to 'Lodem.' If Q Dalang can realize that, he might still have a chance at 'life.'"

"Hm?" Yagyou was slightly taken aback.

When the outcome had been decided earlier, he had indeed heard Shiraki Uke and Akagi Shigeru say "goodbye" and "farewell forever" to Lodem, one after the other.

But Lodem was still alive.

So hadn't those two remarks been meant to mislead Q Dalang? How could they not have been lies?

As Yagyou puzzled over this, a piercing roar suddenly came from upstairs.

"Wah—aaah!"

The sound was deafening, filled with extreme rage and violence, and struck straight at the heart.

"..."

Yagyou narrowed his eyes in thought.

Naturally, only Lodem upstairs could have made a roar like that, but listening closely, it sounded a little strange.

There was a sense of bewilderment in it... even grievance.

For a moment, Yagyou even felt as though Lodem was on the verge of "crying."

Lodem? The murderous demon of the Abandoned Building—crying? What kind of joke was that?

...Wait!

Yagyou suddenly realized something and snapped his head up. He had overlooked someone—the other personality inside Lodem, and the true owner of that body.

The one roaring was Maruk!

Upstairs, sixth floor.

Everything around him had been reduced to a wreck. Maruk had long since stopped chasing Q Dalang and stood frozen in place.

"Ah... ah..."

Maruk rubbed his ears, his hearing gradually recovering from the effects of the bullets.

He spoke haltingly. "F-Father, who... who am I?"

"Am I Father's... son? Or am I Lodem, who kills for Father?"

Maruk's head felt like a mess.

Earlier, after Shiraki Uke and the others had briefly subdued him, Baku Madarame had put an earpiece on Maruk and connected it to Akagi Shigeru.

As a result, Maruk had heard Q Dalang's words.

Q Dalang had said that he had attacked several villages in a war zone, killed the adults, and kept the children for human experimentation. Maruk was the only test subject who had survived.

The words in those statements kept swirling through Maruk's mind in different combinations.

He also remembered Q Dalang's twisted smile when they first met, and what he had said to him.

—All right, Maruk, let's go. From today onward, I'm your father.

"...Urgh, no!"

Maruk burst into tears. They streamed uncontrollably from his eyes, gradually washing away the cleaning agent that had impaired his vision.

"I'm... not Maruk, and I'm not Lodem..."

"Ah—ah! You liar, who am I? Tell me!"

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Maruk swung his fists again and again, smashing them into the surrounding walls. Cracks even spread across an entire wall, and broken bricks kept falling.

But no one would answer Maruk's question anymore.

Q Dalang had ultimately failed to realize that the Lodem pursuing him was gone, replaced by the dazed Maruk.

In a state of extreme terror and confusion, Q Dalang had fled blindly and leaped from the sixth floor of the building, falling to his death below with a thud.

"Ah—urgh..."

Staring at the empty space before him, Maruk bit the corners of his mouth until they bled, clenched his fists, and roared at the top of his lungs, "Wah—aaah!"

Because of the human experiments, Maruk was immensely powerful, but he had the mind of a child.

Amid his extreme confusion and pain, Maruk's brain activated a self-protection mechanism, driving his body to vent by frantically smashing everything around him!

Thud! Boom! Crash...

Maruk was now like a child abandoned by his parents, throwing a tantrum as his only way to protect himself as best he could.

Listening to the commotion upstairs, Baku Madarame sighed softly.

"Q Dalang was never going to be killed by Maruk. He sowed his own 'karma' and didn't believe Lodem would spare him. In the end, he died because of his own 'karma.'"

"Indeed."

Yagyou nodded and narrowed his eyes slightly. "In any case, Q Dalang is dead. The winner of this gamble will be decided between Lord Baku and Lord Akagi."

At that, Yagyou couldn't help smiling. "To be honest, compared with Q Dalang, I'm looking forward to a match between you two much more."

"Haha, you're certainly in high spirits, Mr. Yagyou." Baku Madarame chuckled, then looked up. "But is it really all right to just let Maruk go berserk upstairs?"

"..."

Yagyou thought that was just as he had expected. After all, Baku Madarame's goal was Lodem's fighting power, so he had no reason to give up on it outright.

And if they wanted to subdue the out-of-control Maruk, aside from Yagyou, only one other person present stood a chance...

"Heh, that's all we can do."

A cigarette between his lips, Akagi Shigeru looked toward Shiraki Uke, who had finished warming up and walked to the office door. "The rest is up to you, Uke. Let me see your fighting fists once more."

"...All right!"

Shiraki Uke raised a fist high and disappeared from everyone's sight.

Yagyou understood what the Man of the Divine Realm was thinking.

Compared with Usogui, who had another objective, Akagi Shigeru's presence here was clearly even stranger, at odds with the rumors about his personality.

But if Akagi Shigeru's purpose was to witness the outcome between Shiraki Uke and Maruk, it made sense.

There was no other reason—the "referee" Yagyou himself wanted to see it too.

Setting aside the gamble, the killing, the schemes, and everything else, if Shiraki Uke and Maruk were pitted against each other, who would be stronger?

Sixth floor.

Shiraki Uke came up the stairs and stepped out of the shadows into the moonlit corridor, appearing in Maruk's sight.

Maruk's fists were bloody from smashing things. He panted heavily, his eyes an unsettling red. "Who... am I?"

Shiraki Uke took off his shirt, revealing his streamlined muscles, and scratched his head helplessly.

"Well, sorry, I don't know who you are."

He spread his arms and assumed Zangief's fighting stance, his movements far more practiced than they had been a few minutes ago.

Shiraki Uke breathed out a warm breath. "But we can try to think about 'how to live'..."

Chapter 36: I Don't Want to Lose (Third Release!)

"Urgh, gah—!"

Maruk gasped for breath and growled incessantly, thin streams of drool mixed with streaks of bright red running from the corners of his mouth.

"How... to live?"

Hearing Shiraki Uke's words, he saw flashbacks of Q Dalang's past lessons.

Maruk, kill!

All you have to do is kill. You don't need to think about anything else!

Tch, this Maruk is such a waste. I'd better bring Lodem out quickly...