The Cutting Artist

"Everyone! Everyone!!" Killian roared. "Get him! Tear him apart! Melt him!!"

"Die—!!!"

On the deck, the remaining twenty-odd Extremis Soldiers surged toward Azu from all directions like a pack of enraged beasts!

They would use their blazing heat to roast this blond bastard alive into charcoal!

"No! Homelander! Get out of the way!" Rhodey shouted instinctively.

"Danger!!" Tony raised his last remaining repulsor cannon as well.

Azu stood at the center of the storm.

Slowly... he closed his eyes.

"They're really too loud. Sometimes, I really wish I didn't have super hearing."

He spoke softly.

The next second, he opened his eyes.

Those azure eyes were instantly flooded with searing crimson!

"Bzzzt—!!!!!"

Death rays shot from Azu's eyes!

He began to spin.

Like an elegant ballet dancer, he slowly turned in a circle where he stood.

Those two beams of Heat Vision, like two indestructible blades, swept across the entire battlefield with him as their center.

Time seemed to slow.

Through his damaged faceplate, Tony Stark witnessed a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life.

An Extremis Soldier leaped high into the air, lunging at Azu.

The Heat Vision... swept across his waist.

His upper body remained in the air, still holding its diving posture, while his lower body... had already separated from it.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The seven or eight Extremis Soldiers charging at the front were all cut cleanly in half at the waist.

Their upper bodies hit the ground, still twitching.

"Ah... ah..." A soldier with only half his body left looked down at his empty lower half and let out a pained howl.

"It's not over."

Azu raised his head.

His Heat Vision... became a cutting machine.

"Bzzzt—! Bzzzt—! Bzzzt—!"

Like a cold-blooded artist wielding a paintbrush, he began dismantling these "humanoid furnaces"...

Vertical cuts, horizontal cuts, diagonal cuts.

Arms, thighs, torsos, heads.

In a mere three seconds, those twenty-odd arrogant Extremis Soldiers had all been... cut into pieces.

Three minutes later.

Azu withdrew his Heat Vision, and his eyes returned to azure.

He stood amid a field of... severed limbs, completely spotless.

His Stars and Stripes cape remained immaculate.

"..."

"Bleurgh..." President Ellis was the first to crack. Bracing himself against the railing, he vomited violently.

"My... God..." With a clatter, Colonel Rhodey disengaged his armor, rushed to the president's side, and gently patted his back.

Tony Stark stood frozen in place.

He looked at the "parts" scattered across the deck, then at that smiling face. The sheer righteousness of it felt sinister... and a chill shot straight to his head.

"Demon... you demon!!"

Killian was the only one left. Looking at the "artwork" covering the ground, he was clearly on the verge of a mental breakdown.

"Oh, you're not dead yet?" Azu pretended as if he had only just noticed him.

"No... don't come over!" Killian scrambled backward in a panic. "Don't come over!!"

"I... I still have a hostage!!" Killian suddenly remembered something and lunged toward a half-open shipping container.

"Pepper!!" Tony remembered too!

Killian rushed into the container and dragged out a woman.

Pepper Potts!

She looked weak, and her body glowed with the orange-red light of the Extremis Virus.

"Don't move!!" Killian clamped a hand around Pepper's throat. That hand had already begun to glow red.

"Tony..." Pepper said weakly.

"Let her go! Killian, you son of a bitch!!" Tony raised his repulsor cannon. "Come at me!!"

"Too late, Tony!" Killian's face twisted with madness. "You're all going to die! I want her dead! I want you to watch her..."

"Hey."

Azu's voice suddenly sounded beside Killian's ear.

Killian's pupils contracted sharply.

"...What? What the fuck!"

He realized... he was no longer on the dock.

He realized... Tony and Pepper were both... beneath him?

He... was in the sky!

At some point, Azu had seized Killian at a speed beyond the limits of human vision and carried him thousands of meters into the night sky.

"Take a deep breath. Feeling dizzy is normal..." Azu faced Killian, the smile still on his face.

"Ah—! Put me down! You monster! Let go of me!! You can't kill me!" Killian struggled madly in midair.

"Why can't I?"

"Because... because I'm... Aaaaah—!!"

Azu's eyes lit up again.

This time, the Heat Vision did not cut him apart.

Instead...

"Bzzzt—!!!"

Two thin beams of Heat Vision pierced precisely through both of Killian's eyes!

"..."

Killian's scream came to an abrupt stop.

In 0.01 seconds, his brain was completely roasted into protein charcoal by a temperature of 5,000 degrees.

Azu let go.

Killian's corpse tumbled like a rag doll as it fell back toward the dock...

On the tanker's deck.

Tony Stark finally broke free of that battered armor.

He rushed to Pepper, and the two embraced tightly.

"Tony... I... I'm burning up... I..." Pepper's body flickered between light and dark.

"It's okay, Pepper, I'm here. I can cure you. I definitely can..."

"Ahem."

A soft cough interrupted their "touching" reunion.

Wu Yanzu slowly descended from the sky.

He landed before them, his Stars and Stripes cape draping perfectly behind him.

"You..." Tony looked at him, his expression complicated. "Thank you for saving her... for saving us."

"I'm only saving the world, Tony." Wu Yanzu's smile was flawless. "Those little iron cans of yours..."

He casually glanced at the wreckage of Iron Man armor on the deck.

"...didn't hold up."

"You!" Tony felt his pride suffer a devastating blow.

"As for her..." Wu Yanzu's X-Ray Vision swept brazenly across Pepper Potts's body.

"The Extremis Virus... is interesting. But it doesn't seem very stable."

"Don't look at her!!" Tony stepped in front of Pepper like an enraged lion.

"Relax, Tony." Wu Yanzu withdrew his gaze. He knew Tony could handle this virus himself.

His eyes turned toward the "valuable asset" still vomiting in the corner.

"Mr. President." Wu Yanzu's voice became "gentler."

"Ah... yes! Mr. Homelander!" President Ellis wiped his mouth and staggered over. "Thank you! Thank you for saving... for saving America!"

"It was nothing, Mr. President." Wu Yanzu patted the president on the shoulder.

"I'll take you back to the White House now. The reporters are all waiting for you."

"Then... what about them?" The president pointed at Tony and Pepper.

"Oh, Mr. Stark?" Wu Yanzu smiled.