The Girl Walking Toward Me Makes My Heart Stir

"Ahhh!"

Butcher's face twisted as he let out a pained roar. Nearly suffocating, he felt like his eyes were about to burn blind and tried to close them to stop the laser beams.

"Not enough. Keep going!"

Leon noticed Butcher's movement. He clawed both hands around Butcher's head, his ten fingers digging into his eyelids and forcing him to keep firing until Leon was satisfied.

The brutal scene scared Mother's Milk and Frenchie so badly that neither dared move. As ordinary people, all they could do now was watch and pray that Butcher could hold on.

At last.

"Wryyyyyyyyyyy!"

With an excited cry worthy of Dio, Leon tossed Butcher aside like garbage. Then, after closing his eyes and gathering power for 2.5 seconds—

Shudder—!!!!!

He suddenly threw his head back toward the ceiling. Two blazing golden beams shot out, instantly melting through the ceiling and splitting the clouds in the sky in two.

At that moment.

The midnight darkness became bright as day.

"Shit!"

"He can use laser eyes too!"

Frenchie cried out and shielded the furious Mother's Milk behind him. It seemed they had made the wrong choice—

What they had released this time was not merely a "secret weapon" capable of eliminating Homelander.

It was also a demon even more terrifying than Homelander!

"Cough, cough, cough!"

Butcher, hunched over on the ground, suddenly coughed twice. Frenchie and Mother's Milk hurried over to help him up, asking with concern, "Butcher, are you all right?"

"Heh heh, at least I'm not dead yet."

"It's just that my eyes seem blind, but also not blind..."

As he spoke, Butcher tapped his head. In his vision, Mother's Milk and Frenchie looked like they had been pixelated; he could only make out two blurry figures.

After taking a moment to recover, Butcher did not dwell on it. He gave Mother's Milk and Frenchie a look that said, "Leave everything to me," then fearlessly walked toward Leon again.

Putting Butcher's character aside, he truly deserved the saying, "Humanity's greatest hymn is the hymn of courage." It was just that his "golden spirit" seemed a little blackened.

"Oi, mate, calmed down now?" Butcher wore his trademark wicked grin. "You were imprisoned by the Soviets for decades. We were the ones who got you out."

"I think we need to go somewhere else and sit down for a chat."

"Okay."

"But before that..."

Leon needed a change of clothes, so he reached toward Butcher again.

"Not this again?"

Butcher looked utterly speechless, but he had learned his lesson this time. He did not resist at all, letting Leon strip him down to nothing but a pair of red briefs.

Off to the side.

"Pfft—"

Frenchie's lips trembled from holding back his laughter, but he did not dare make a sound and desperately covered his mouth.

Mother's Milk hated Soldier Boy for killing his family, but he had never seen Butcher in such a miserable state before. He turned away, yet the smile never left his lips.

Before long.

Leon had changed into Butcher's battle-worn outfit. Then he knocked Kimiko unconscious with one punch when she refused to let go of him, tossed her behind him, and ignored her.

Butcher caught her.

Meanwhile, Mother's Milk and Frenchie found Hughie, barely clinging to life amid the ruins. They found a stretcher and laid the badly injured Hughie on it.

"Butcher, he needs treatment."

Mother's Milk looked at Hughie with deep concern.

"I know."

"But we can't neglect this side either."

Butcher looked at Leon, who had started walking outside without a word as though he were leaving, and urged the rest of The Boys to follow quickly.

"Wait!"

After taking two steps, Leon suddenly raised a hand somewhat neurotically, signaling Butcher and the others to stop.

"What is it?"

Butcher asked.

"Almost forgot."

Leon turned to look at Butcher.

Shudder—

He fired laser beams directly from his eyes, blasting Butcher away. Then he picked up two rifles from the ground and went rat-a-tat-tat at Mother's Milk and Frenchie until both magazines were empty.

"That's what I forgot—"

Leon whistled, then said, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Lasers for lasers, bullets for bullets. Fair, isn't it?"

Butcher's fate was unknown. Mother's Milk and Frenchie had each been shot several times in their right arms and right thighs.

"Shit!"

"Why do both these rifles pull to the left?"

"I've had professional training. I was dead accurate when fighting those Nazi bitches. It's definitely these two guns' fault. Don't you think?"

Leon clenched both hands, crushing the two left-pulling rifles into lumps of scrap metal. Then he looked at Mother's Milk and Frenchie, who had collapsed to the ground in pain, with a smile as toxic as nuclear fallout.

"Yes, yes!"

"It must be the guns' fault!"

Frenchie hurriedly nodded from the bottom of his heart.

Off to the side.

Mother's Milk stared at Leon with fury and hatred all over his face. Frenchie immediately sensed trouble and hurriedly told Mother's Milk to lower his head.

Mother's Milk was unwilling in every possible way, but the enemy was strong and they were weak. Charging in blindly to get himself killed would serve no purpose at all.

For the sake of his surviving family, he could only grit his teeth, nod, and agree with Leon's twisted argument.

"You're accurate. The guns aren't."

"That's more like it~"

Leon wore an incredibly infectious smile as he patted Mother's Milk's shot thigh. Even though Mother's Milk grimaced in agony, he could only force a smile back at Leon.

Because Frenchie kept whispering in his ear:

"Mother's Milk, don't do anything reckless. I haven't lived long enough yet. For me, for Hughie, for Butcher, for killing Homelander, you have to hold it in!"

The facts proved it.

Butcher's own laser eyes could not kill him in one shot.

Before long.

He stood before Leon again, lively as ever, though his face was black as coal. "You should be satisfied now, right? If there's anything else you're unhappy about, we'd better settle it here and now."

"Let's go."

Leon grinned.

"..."

Butcher and the others followed behind him, staying on high alert the entire time, afraid Leon would attack again.

They returned to the America Leon knew, yet it was another America.

The evil aura on the streets was practically overflowing.

Along the way.

Leon was like an old country woman visiting a grand estate for the first time.

Touching this, looking at that.

Butcher and the others were used to it. In their eyes, Leon's understanding of the world was still stuck several decades in the past.

However.

The truth was that Leon was curious about the way superhumans and ordinary people coexisted. He had come partly with the intention of learning.

After all, what he saw on television was only a glimpse through a tube, the tip of an iceberg.

Reality was clearly even more surreal.

"Oh~ my God!"

"Hughie—"

The girl walking toward me makes my heart stir like never before...