Splish. Splash. Splish. Splash.

The sound of the Wardens footsteps grew closer and closer as she walked through the flooding crater.

Small waves of water brushed against Ed's chest as water droplets pelted his body. A tingly sensation covered his face as he felt the Warden's electricity get closer. 'Now!' His eyes shot open as he pushed his mangled arm against the ground with all of his remaining strength. He lunged towards her with his mouth wide open, preparing to sink his sharp teeth into her flesh.

The Warden stumbled a step backwards in shock but quickly recovered. She hurriedly struck out with both her lightning covered hands, her right hand piercing Ed's heart and her left hand piercing his lungs.

"UGH." He coughed out more blood but continued forward, his teeth sinking into the Warden's neck. Blood sprayed everywhere, covering his face and filling his mouth. Silver flames lit up on his teeth, allowing his bite to sink even deeper. The fire scorched her flesh while sending jolts of hot electricity through her nerves.

"Urghrh!!!" The Warden struggled to speak, but only gibberish came out. She struggled to pull her arms out from Ed's chest, waving him back-and-forth like a rag doll.

SPLASH! Ed's mangled body landed in the flooding waters.

The Warden struggled to cover her bloody neck, finally managing to whisper. "Bastard... You want us to die together?" She struggled to gasp for air but failed to do so. The scorched holes in her neck were blocking any oxygen intake. Her vision was already starting to fade from the blood loss and lack of air.

Ed struggled to grin and mouthed the words. 'I won't die.'

"Imposs...ble" She collapsed backwards into the rising waters.

'Maybe, but I still have a chance.' Only one of his three hearts had been penetrated, and he still had his backup pair of lungs. His preparations in the past had potentially saved his life once again. 'Need to stay awake...' Purple flames covered his body so that he could activate his usual powers. He crudely closed his wounds with no concern for aesthetics. Then he sent his powers to his adrenal glands atop his kidneys, manipulating them to send out extreme levels of adrenaline. His remaining two hearts beat incredibly fast and his breathing quickened.

"Pfft." He spit out some water that had managed to enter his mouth. The rising water was starting to cover the rest of his body. It was only being kept at bay temporarily by his purple flames. 'Damn it, Tai. Come help me already!' He struggled to pour more mana into the purple flames, creating a tall purple beacon. Hopefully someone would notice and help him.

Time passed. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Ed had no idea. It felt like an eternity. The water covered his entire body, and he could no longer breathe. His vision finally faded as he failed to remain conscious.

...

Ed's soul appeared within the usual black void. 'Why do I always end up here when I'm almost dead.' He sighed while shaking his head. 'I wonder if other espers experience something similar.' He looked down at his body, and a grimace appeared on his face. 'It's gotten even worse.' The soul cracks had spread from his arm and neck to the entirety of the right-half of his body. 'What'll happen if my soul actually shatters?'

Suddenly, a golden wisp of his faith energy near his mana-core began struggling to escape. After several attempts, a soul body appeared, its arms crossed across its chest.

"Mayor Mick." Ed nodded towards him.

"Tsk." Mick clicked his tongue while shaking his head. "If you keep this up, it'll only be a matter of time before I fall into the President's hands, and believe me, that will not be a pleasant experience for me."

Ed looked at his right hand, closing and opening it repeatedly. "It can't be helped." He replied. "It's not like I know how to heal soul cracks, and it'll take time to get to India."

"Can't be helped?!" Mick frowned. "Maybe if you weren't such a crazy son of a bitch, it wouldn't have gotten to this point! You've only been an esper for two years, but you've already had a 2nd awakening, absorbed an insane amount of golden faith energy, and fought against some of the most powerful espers in the world! Would it kill you to be less suicidal?!"

"That..." Ed grimaced. "I had little choice in the matter. Everything just keeps escalating."

"Then deescalate it." He replied. "I don't know what's going on in the outside world right now, but you're still young. A tree that grows too quickly has no foundation. You can always create your little world power later in life. Take some time to relax and smell the flowers! Get a hobby, get married, have some kids, or something. But whatever you do, stop fucking up your soul!"

"This was a necessary expense to escape the cage." Ed crossed his arms and argued. "It had to be done."

"What a lame excuse." Mayor Mick pointed his finger towards Ed's face. "Were you not the man that defeated the Florida Governor despite the vast gap in your powers? Were you not always prepared for any situation, creating ridiculous plans that always came through in the end? Why is now any different? You're just making excuses for your own failures."

"Maybe..." He sighed while half-agreeing. "At the very least, I need to put more effort into improving my body and stop blowing myself up... Anyways, anything new going on here?"

"Nothing you wouldn't already be aware of." Mick shook his head.

"I see..." He nodded.

Time slowly passed as the two awkwardly stared at each other. It seemed that Ed was going to be here a while this time. Fed up with the silence, he spoke. "Shouldn't you be... returning to the golden energy by now? I thought it was difficult for you to escape it?"

"It's probably because your soul is collapsing." Mayor Mick sighed. "It was much easier to escape this time. You're lucky I'm holding some of the other souls in check. Otherwise, one might try taking over when you're in this weakened state."

"They can do that?!" Ed's eyes widened in shock.

"It's technically possible." He nodded. "Hard to say if they'd succeed, but at the very least it would exacerbate the soul cracks.

'Damn.' Ed clenched his teeth in frustration. Suddenly, he felt the void fading away.

"I'll keep protecting you for now." Mick waved towards him. "But you need to hurry."

"Right." He nodded as the void vanished.

...

Ed's vision slowly recovered. He was in a long purple room with a low ceiling. 'A manullium bunker?' He wondered. Several dozen men and women lied next to him, all covered in varying levels of injuries. Carlos was right next to him, unmoving but awake.

"Look who finally woke up." Carlos grinned. "Sheesh, and I thought I went overboard for the Warden fight. Do you have a death wish?"

"I did what I had too..." He looked around the room. "How much time has passed?"

"It's been about four hours since the battle ended." Carlos answered. "The next battle is about to begin, but from the sounds of it, we might be getting left behind."

"I see." He nodded. "It makes sense. We're just dead weight at this point after all. How are the casualties?"

"It went better than expected thanks to you." A voice interrupted as Tai walked in while waving his fan. "My men are down to 750. Same goes for Rubi. The rest of the gangs only have 2,000 men combined. It's a bit weaker than I'd like for the final battle, but at least the numbers are evened up. I shouldn't have to worry about them backstabbing me now."

"What are our odds in the final fight?" He questioned.

"Hmm..." Tai frowned as he crossed his arms. "It's hard to say. The Warden being out of the picture will be a huge advantage, but we've also lost you and Carlos. The fort on the other side is a fully staffed military training base. They'll probably have more espers than us overall, but the prisoners are probably stronger. After all, most of those that have survived up to this point are the stronger espers. Not to mention that usually only strong espers survive beyond a month in the cage anyways."

"So, we'll probably win." He nodded. "What do you plan to do with Carlos, me, and the others?"

"Well for now, we've been working on opening the gate. It's a very time-consuming process since we need to use ordinary flames to do it." Tai sighed. "It'd be much faster if you were still in prime condition. As for what we'll-"

"Please don't leave us!" A voice interrupted.

Ed turned around and saw a black-haired woman with both legs missing. Tears were in her eyes as she struggled up from the wall and groveled towards Tai. "Please, Mr. Long. We've come so far. Please don't leave us here!"

Tai sighed while shaking his head. "There's nothing I can do. The injured would become too large a hindrance. Trust me. I don't want to leave behind any more of my forces than I must, but there are limits to what I can do."

"And us?" Carlos questioned while frowning.

"You two are of course different." He replied. "I've made arrangements with Rubi for you to be transported in the mech tank."

"Why them and not us?!" The woman from before screamed. "We sacrificed just as much to make it this far! We put our lives on the line to escape! We trusted you and Rubi! How can you just leave us like this while taking these outsiders?!"

The other espers in the room remained silent, though it could be seen from their eyes that they shared similar sentiments.

"I'm sorry..." Tai had an awkward look on his face, which he quickly covered up with his fan. He turned to leave the bunker, clearly wishing to avoid any more of this conversation topic.

"Damn it!" The woman cried. "Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! It's not fair!"

Suddenly, some water flowed into the bunker, soaking the clothes of any espers lying down.

"The flooding is getting worse..." Carlos commented. "It won't be long before we have no choice but to leave. Hopefully they break through the gate on time."

Ed lazily eyed the other injured espers, evaluating them one by one. 'As if I'd put my fate in the final battle in the hands of some unknown esper piloting the mech tank.' He scoffed to himself. Spotting an esper that was only missing an arm, he called towards him. "Oy, One-armed old man. Why are you here? You look mostly fine to me?"

The gray-haired old man frowned as he glared at Ed. "None of your god damn business!"

"Oh, you don't want to leave alive?" He questioned.

"Nope." The old man shook his head in denial. "Perfectly happy where I am."

'Hmm? Is he crazy?" Ed wondered. He studied the man carefully before noticing he was occasionally glancing at a young girl next to him. She appeared to only be thirteen years or so old. "Ah, so that's the reason." He smiled. "Protecting your precious daughter? Or is she your granddaughter?"

The old man continued to ignore him.

"Tsk." He clicked his tongue. 'Annoying old bastard doesn't know what's good for him. Guess I'll mess with him a bit.' He chuckled. "Did I guess wrong? I've heard about espers being purchased down here. Don't tell me she's your sex slave?"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" The old man stood up, fury raging in his eyes. He towered over Ed as he walked over, wrapping his hand around Ed's throat.

"Haha, we don't want to get violent now, do we?" Ed questioned as purple flames lit up on his neck, scorching the old man's hand.

"GAH!" He let go and stumbled several steps back.

The flames slowly covered the rest of Ed's body. "It'd be a shame if your precious person over there got burned now, wouldn't it?" He grinned.

The old man frowned, looking back-and-forth between the girl and Ed. He clenched his teeth in anger. "What do you want?"

"Did you see where the Warden died?" Ed questioned.

"Mm." He nodded. "In the crater. I saw you crazy bastards fight. Who could possibly miss it?"

"Good." Ed smiled. "Bring her body to me and I'll save the girl. Good deal, right?"

The man frowned for a moment before nodding. "Fine. I'll be back." He left the bunker.

"Me too!" Somebody yelled. "I'll bring you a body, so save me too!"

"No, me!" Another begged.

"SHUT UP!" Ed shouted as the purple flames on his body flared throughout the room, though they didn't actually injure anybody.

Carlos watched in silence for a moment before whispering, "Why choose the old guy? And what do you want the body for?"

"He looked the healthiest." He replied. "The body is for healing us, but it's only going to be enough to heal you, me, and maybe one or two others."

"Couldn't you just heal the others with other bodies?" Carlos questioned.

"I naturally have my own plans for that." He grinned.

Several minutes passed before the old man returned. His body was soaked in ocean water, and he carried a bloody corpse with no skin on its body. "Here." He frowned as he flung the body on the ground. The corpse landed with a thud in front of Ed.

"You have my thanks." He nodded as his purple flames pushed away all surrounding purple smoke. His usual mana entered the corpse and slowly worked on melting the flesh. 'Tsk.' He frowned. 'It's even tougher than the crocodile flesh from Horn Island.'

Over the course of an hour, he melted chunks of flesh and fused them into his body. When he was finally done, he looked to be completely back to normal. "Not bad." He smiled as he flexed his new arms. 'Should be just a bit stronger than the crocodile flesh before utilizing the chimera form. I guess the flesh weakened a lot since she died over four hours ago. Can I still use my chimera form though?' He struggled to activate the chimera form, and scales covered his body. 'Hmm... It's a lot weaker than before. I'm guessing my percentage of crocodile flesh is barely hovering around the 50 percent mark again. Since I mostly became immune to the emotional effects, I should probably look for a strong mutant after getting out to integrate with my body. Besides, the Warden's flesh kind of grosses me out. She reminded me too much of Luny.'

Awakening from his thoughts, he turned to Carlos. "You're up next. Shouldn't take long with your injuries."

"Haha, looks like I made a good decision in joining you." Carlos smiled.

By now, the water was up to their knees. Ed hurriedly fixed Carlos spine, arm, and other injuries. It only took him a fraction of the time when compared to healing himself. "The girl is next. Bring her." He said towards the old man.

The old man nodded and carried her over. The girl's injuries were almost as bad as Ed's had been. Though she still had all four limbs, half her body looked like it had been pushed through a meat grinder. It took him nearly a full hour to heal her, and he used up the last of the Wardens flesh in doing so.

"That should do it for now." He wiped some sweat from his forehead. The water was now up to his waist. Some of the injured espers were even struggling to keep their heads above water."

"Please, help us!" Some had never stopped begging the entire time.

Ed ignored them as he leaned against the bunker wall, his arms crossed over his chest. Carlos, the old man, and the girl seemed confused, but they chose to wait as well. When the water reached Ed's stomach, somebody entered the bunker.

"Ed?! Carlos?!" Tai's eyes widened in shock as he glanced at them and the healed girl. "Oh, right. I've heard your original powers could be used to heal injuries, but to think it was this extreme. Amazing!"

"Haha, yup." Ed smiled. "Ready to go?" He began walking towards the exit, acting like he was going to leave the bunker.

"Wait!" Tai grabbed Ed's shoulder. "Can't you heal the others as well?" He questioned, concern visible in his eyes.

"Mr. Long!" A woman shouted. "I knew you wouldn't abandon us! I knew it!"

"Long live the Fire Dragon Clan!" Another injured esper yelled in glee.

"Help them?" Ed turned around, a devilish smile on his face. "I'm sure we can work out some kind of trade."