Villain: Your Heroines Were Delicious

Chapter 144: Chapter 9

“Israel: He Who Wrestled With God”, the manifestation of the Karyoku she received from Jacob.

It takes the form of a pair of white and gold gauntlets and a pair of wings, the physical manifestation of the blessings that a mortal fought for.

The Six Armed Cyclops, the spirit that Takeko made a contract with, giving him extreme offensive and defensive capabilities, changing his form and giving him six arms and a third eye.

The clashes between the two combatants caused the West Wing gallery, already a ruin of shattered glass and splintered wood, to become an epicenter of a metaphysical cataclysm.

Yukina took to the air, her gauntlets glowed as her wings beating with a rhythmic, thunderous sound.

The spirit she had contracted with, Jacob, the one who wrestled with the Divine, granted her a presence that felt less like a delinquent and more like a celestial executioner.

The gold and silver gauntlets on her arms began to hum with a low-frequency vibration that could pulverize concrete.

Opposite her, Takeko stood like a titan. The Six-Armed Cyclops loomed behind him, its massive form mirroring his stance.

With three eyes locked onto Yukina’s trajectory and six arms ready to intercept any angle of attack, he was like a living fortress, or rather, a biological battle tank!

“Here I come, Senpai!” Yukina roared.

In an instant, she vanished. Her wings propelled her forward at a velocity that broke the sound barrier within the confined hallway.

A sonic boom shattered the remaining glass in the display cases as she appeared directly in front of Takeko’s central guard.

She wound back her right gauntlet, the spirit energy condensing into a point of blinding light.

Takeko didn’t flinch. Four of his arms crossed in a diamond formation to block, while his last pair of arms reached out to grapple.

The collision was like two tectonic plates grinding together. A shockwave of orange and purple Ki ripped through the floor, peeling the marble tiles away like paper.

“Strong!” Takeko grunted, his feet sliding back an inch, leaving deep furrows in the concrete. “But too linear!”

With his four extra arms, he performed a simultaneous counter.

Two arms struck at Yukina’s ribs, two gripped her wings to ground her, and his large fists launched a devastating Judo throw.

Yukina gasped as the air was punched out of her, but she used the momentum of her wings to flip mid-air, her gauntlets sparking as she dragged them across Takeko’s extra forearms, carving deep lines of golden energy into his body.

“HAH!” Yukina roared as she completely disregarded defenses to savagely attack.

“Amateur strikes! You are leaving yourself wide open! Your swings are too wide! You will exhaust yourself first before breaking my defenses!”

“Stop nagging! You’re not my mom!”

The fight devolved into a brutal, high-speed exchange of blows that the human eye could no longer track.

To a bystander, it would look like a sphere of light and shadow exploding repeatedly across the gallery.

Yukina used her flight to her advantage, circling the giant like a golden hornet, striking from the ceiling, the floor, and the walls.

Every time she struck, her gauntlets released a burst of divine force.

But Takeko was a master of the mat. His third eye tracked her every feint, and his six arms allowed him to maintain a perfect 360-degree defense.

“You’re amazing, Watanabe Yukina!” Takeko shouted, his physical voice merging with the guttural roar of the Cyclops.

He then caught one of her kicks in his lower hand and slammed her into a structural pillar. “Your resolve is beautiful! But can your body handle the weight of that spirit?!”

Yukina coughed, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, but her eyes were glowing with a manic, joyous light.

She felt her muscles screaming under the strain of her Karyoku.

But to her, it was nothing. Unlike other Karyoku users who probably sacrificed a lot, Jacob only demanded she go to church every Sunday and pray.

However, the method of getting the ability itself pushed her to her limits.

Jacob wanted her to recreate his legend, meaning, she would have to wrestle Jacob and forcefully take the ability herself.

For nearly an entire month, she spent every day and night fighting that man who had wrestle with a god, causing her to gain supernatural endurance and pain tolerance.

But of course, her body still has limits.

’Just a little more,’ she thought, her vision blurring. ’Seijirou trusted me, I can’t betray his trust. I can’t fall here.’

She pushed off the pillar, her wings expanding to their full width, glowing so brightly they illuminated the entire wing of the school.

She flew upward, touching the high ceiling, before diving straight down in a vertical spiral.

She became a drill of white and gold light!

Takeko immediately sensed the danger. So he planted his feet, his six arms all reaching upward, palms open.

He channeled every ounce of his dark purple spirit energg into a singular point of defense.

The Cyclops behind him roared, its third eye flashing with a blinding red light.

“Come! I will block you!”

The collision was the loudest sound the 24th District had heard in decades.

The floor of the West Wing gallery finally gave way under the sheer pressure, collapsing into the floor below.

A pillar of orange fire and purple smoke erupted into the sky, visible from miles away.

For a moment, the world was nothing but noise and light.

When the dust finally began to settle, the scene was one of total devastation.

The Cyclops was gone.

The white wings were gone.

Takeko stood in the center of the crater, his school uniform completely shredded, revealing a chest covered in bruises and burns.

He was still standing, his eyes open, but the light in them was fading.

He looked down at Yukina, who lay at his feet, breathing heavily, gritting her teeth, her eyes looking incredibly unwilling.

Her gauntlets were cracked, the silver and gold dulling back to the color of cold iron.

She had used the last of her strength to deliver a blow that had bypassed his six-arm defense and struck his heart directly.

“Watanbe Yukina…” Takeko whispered, a small, peaceful smile appearing on his face. “In the end… I lost.”

His massive body finally tilted forward.

Like a great oak tree falling in a forest, Takeko collapsed, hitting the rubble with a heavy thud.

“The fuck…you mean…you lost?” She turned towards Takeko, before silently staring at the broken ceiling.

The cratered remnants of the gallery immediately fell into an eerie silence, the air thick with the smell of pulverized stone and the fading heat of their spiritual collision.

Yukina, who was laying sprawled on a slab of cracked marble, her chest heaving as she tried to pull oxygen into her burning lungs.

Despite the agony radiating from every joint, a soft, melodic laugh bubbled up from her throat.

“You’re… you’re a real monster, Senpai,” she wheezed, her voice cracking. “I felt like I was punching a skyscraper the whole time. My hands are still vibrating.”

Takeko, who had been face-down in the rubble, let out a low, guttural grunt.

Slowly, with the agonizing deliberation of a man moving through wet cement, he pushed himself up and sat up straight, spitting out a mouthful of dust to the side and taking a deep breath.

“Monster or not…,” Takeko muttered, his voice gravelly but steady, “I lost. My defense was breached. My spirit was outlasted. There is no shame in admitting the truth.”

Yukina shook her head, her damp hair sticking to her forehead. “Don’t sell yourself short. At most, it’s a tie. I know you were holding back. You didn’t want to break me after all, you wanted to ’correct’ me. If you’d fought with all your might from the start, I’d be a smudge on the floor right now.”

Takeko looked at her, his third eye having long since closed, leaving only his weary human gaze. “Maybe. But a warrior who cannot fully commit to the battle has already conceded the victory.”

He stood up, his massive frame silhouetted against the moonlight streaming through the shattered windows.

He reached down and picked up a tattered piece of his uniform, using it to wipe the blood from his brow.

“Watanabe Yukina. I like your spirit. You have the heart of a lioness. However…” He paused, his gaze critical. “Your fighting style is crude. You rely too much on the raw power of your Karyoku and the instinct of the streets. You waste energy in your pivots and leave your liver exposed when you lunge.”

Yukina groaned, “You really sound like a mom.”

But she couldn’t help but wonder, is this what her sister feels whenever she nag at her to always look after herself?

Takeko ignored her words and turned away, looking toward the exit. “If you survive this night, and if you truly wish to protect that man of yours… come find me. I will teach you how to properly apply that strength. Someone with your strength should not fight like a savage.”

Yukina blinked, her eyes widening in surprise. “Wait… Takeko-senpai? Where are you going? The battle is still happening upstairs.”

“I have already lost,” Takeko said, his voice echoing with a strange, newfound dignity. “As a defeated general, my role in this play is finished. I have no more reason to draw my spirit against your friends. I am going to the infirmary and also to see if any of my club members are still fighting.”

He paused at the edge of the shadows, looking back one last time. “Worry not. I will no longer interfere with this war. Tell your Kageyama that the ’Durable’ Limb has been snapped.”

With that, the giant vanished into the darkness of the hallway, his footsteps heavy but certain.

Yukina watched him go, a faint smile on her lips.

She tried to push herself up, her muscles screaming in protest as her arms gave out halfway, and she collapsed back onto the marble with a pained groan.

“Holy hell…” she cursed, her eyes rolling toward the ceiling. “My body hurts like absolute shit. Every cell in my body is throwing a riot.”

She realized then that she couldn’t move her legs—not because they were broken, but because her Karyoku had drained her dry.

She was now like a spent battery, a hollowed-out shell of a warrior.

“I’ll probably just… rest here for a bit,” she whispered to the empty gallery.

She closed her eyes, feeling the cool night breeze on her skin, the adrenaline finally ebbing away to leave only a profound, satisfied exhaustion. “I’ll leave the rest to you, Seijirou-sama… Rindou… Suzune… kick their asses for me.”

She lay there in the ruins, like a fallen Valkyrie bathed in moonlight, listening to the distant sounds of battle echoing from the upper floors.