Guard PoV
The first thing the man had learned in service to the Dragons was simple: slaves break.
Some in a week, some in a month. The stubborn ones might last a year before their eyes dulled and their backs bent. But all of them, every single one, broke eventually.
That was the order of things. The way the world worked.
Until him.
Tyr Hanma.
Four years. Four years, and the bastard still laughed. Still spat blood in his face. Still winked at the sisters, riled up the fish-men, slipped past the despair that crushed everyone else.
And worse — Rosward wouldn't let them finish him.
The guard's lip curled at the thought. The slave wasn't property anymore. He was a trophy. Rosward's prized beast. A monster in chains too rare, too valuable, too amusing to destroy. They could beat him to the edge of death, smash his bones, carve stripes into his flesh until his skin hung in ribbons. But not kill him. Never kill him.
"Cripple him?" he once asked.
Rosward had chuckled, sipping wine behind his mask. "What use is a broken toy? Besides… he heals. Let the freak show off his tricks. It entertains me."
And the bastard did heal. Like the blows never landed. Like his body refused to stay broken. His ribs knit back together, his gait never faltered, his fists always clenched again. The only thing more unholy than his endurance was his laughter — that damned, ragged laugh that spread through the pens like disease.
The guard had watched it happen. Watched slaves glance up when Tyr barked out a drunken joke. Watched them whisper when Tyr threw himself headfirst into another brawl. Watched them straighten their spines, if only for a moment, as if the chains weighed less when he was near.
And he hated him for it.
Before Tyr, slaves knew their place. They cowered. They obeyed. Now they had eyes that sparked in the dark. They looked to the Hanma when they should have been looking at the ground.
The Hanma. The name itself tasted sour. Ancient, cursed, whispered even among guards. They were supposed to be gone. Wiped out, forgotten. And yet here he was — one boy who refused to die, grinning in defiance while the system strained to hold him down.
Four years. Four years of beatings that never stuck. Four years of mockery, of chaos, of Rosward's indulgence.
And now, as fire licked the sky above Mary Geoise and screams filled the air, the guard heard it again. That laugh. That unkillable, unholy laugh.
The laugh of a Hanma.
Lets just use this and continue from here this time the guard will not wait or defy Saint Roswald orders his anger and hate boils over and he just want to kill Tyr as he hears him laugh.
***
The laugh echoed, ragged and wild, through firelit marble halls.
MuHaAhaAhaAh...
MuHaAhaAhaAh...!
It wasn't human. It wasn't sane. It rolled like thunder and rattled the heart, half-mad, half-triumphant — the laugh of a man who should have broken years ago, and instead turned his torment into fuel.
MuHaAhaAhaAh...
MuHaAhaAhaAh...!
The guard stalked toward it, each step heavy with four years of hate. The air stank of blood, smoke, and piss — the stench of slaves running free and nobles shrieking as their gilded world cracked. From somewhere nearby came the crash of chains breaking, the groan of burning beams collapsing.
A woman screamed.
A man begged.
Somewhere, slaves cheered.
MuHaAhaAhaAh...
MuHaAhaAhaAh...!
But louder than all of it — that laugh.
That lunatic Hanma laugh.
MuHaAhaAhaAh!!!
The guard's lip curled. His fingers tightened around the halberd shaft until the leather creaked. He didn't care about Rosward's orders anymore. Didn't care about the prize, the value, the chains. All he wanted was silence.
And to get silence… the Hanma had to die.
The laugh split the air again as the guard rounded the corner.
There he was.
Tyr Hanma, shackles broken, shirt half-burned, chest slick with blood and soot. His bottle dangled from one hand like an afterthought, his other clenched into a fist that looked carved from stone. His eyes burned with something feral, and when they locked onto the guard, the world seemed to shrink to just them.
The guard's jaw tightened. He planted his feet, drew in a sharp breath. Kami-e. His body loosened, flowing like paper. His fingers curled, ready to strike.
The Hanma just grinned. Took a swig from his bottle. Belched smoke.
Then laughed.
The guard moved first. Soru. His body blurred, flickering from sight, and in the same instant he appeared before Tyr, heel whipping out in a brutal Rankyaku that screamed through the air like a blade.
The marble split. Dust sprayed. Slaves nearby shrieked and fled.
But Tyr was already inside his guard. He'd lunged through the dust, bottle raised like a club, grin wide as the attack shaved a lock of hair from his head. The guard caught the strike on his forearm, pain flashing hot up the bone, and drove a fist into Tyr's ribs.
Crack. A normal man's lungs would've collapsed.
Tyr only coughed blood… and laughed.
The sound rattled the guard's teeth. He drove his knee up, catching Tyr's gut, but the bastard twisted with it, using the momentum to smash the bottle into the guard's temple. Glass shattered. Liquor burned. Blood spilled.
The guard staggered, blinking through crimson and firelight.
Tyr swayed, drunk or pretending to be, shoulders loose like a brawler in some dockside tavern. His voice slurred with that maddening cheer.
"Y'know… yer fancy footwork… don't make ya less ugly, mate."
Then he was on him again.
The guard snapped back with Tekkai, body hard as iron, absorbing the wild haymaker.
Even so, the force sent him skidding back, boots grinding sparks on marble. His forearms screamed with the impact. The Hanma's strength wasn't human — chained, starved, whipped for years, and still he struck like a beast uncaged.
The hall around them shook with chaos. Nobles shrieked from balconies. Flames licked the gold-trimmed banners.
Somewhere a cannon roared, shaking dust loose from the ceiling. The guard ignored it all, his focus narrowing to the bloodied man laughing before him.
MuHaAhaAhaAhA...!
"SHUT UP!" the guard roared, launching with Soru again, his fists blurring in a flurry — a bastardized Shigan, not the needle thrusts of CP9, but still fast enough to bruise and tear.
Each blow hammered Tyr's torso, cracking ribs, splitting lips, painting the marble with fresh red.
And still, still!
MuHaAhaAhaAhA!!
The laugh spilled between blood and teeth, not defiance anymore but something worse — delight. Like every punch only proved his madness true. Like the pain itself was wine.
The guard felt it then — not fear, but rage so sharp it nearly blinded him. He wound up, heel cutting through the air for a killing Rankyaku, a blade meant to cleave the Hanma in two.
It carved a trench in the marble. Shards flew.
But Tyr was already inside his guard again, half-crouched, eyes glinting like a predator's in the firelight. His fist thundered up from the floor. The blow landed in the guard's gut with such violence the world went white. Breath left him in a soundless gasp. Blood sprayed from his lips. His feet left the ground.
The laugh followed him into the air.
MuHaAhaAhaAhA..!
The guard crashed through a column. Rubble rained. His body screamed with broken ribs and torn muscle. But still, through blood in his eyes, he saw Tyr advancing — limping, wheezing, grinning, his laugh booming louder than the fire, louder than the screams, louder than the world tearing itself apart.
MuHaAhaAhaAh!!!
***
The guard dragged himself out of the rubble, spitting blood. His body screamed, but he forced it into motion, every muscle drawn tight with rage. His hands trembled—not from fear, never fear—but from the weight of the technique he was about to unleash.
The Hanma staggered closer, laugh peeling through the smoke.
MuHaAhaAhaAh...
The sound grated in his skull. Enough. This ended now.
He planted his stance, breath controlled, every vein bulging as he forced his body past its limits. The air around him quivered, faint shockwaves rippling from his fists. A crude echo of the forbidden technique whispered among elite agents: Rokuogan. He couldn't wield it with the precision of CP9, but he didn't need to. Even a bastardized version could crush a man's insides like paper.
But it needed time. Seconds. Seconds in which the Hanma had to be kept at bay.
So he talked.
"Tell me, monster…" His voice rasped over the roar of fire and screams. "Four years. Four years of chains, whips, steel, and pain. Why do you laugh? Why haven't you broken like the rest?"
Tyr tilted his head, blood dripping from his split lip. He swayed like a drunk, eyes half-lidded, but behind them burned something sharp. Dangerous. His breathing was ragged, his body beaten raw… and yet he smirked.
The guard pressed on, his fists tightening, drawing the air tighter, pulling his body toward the finishing strike.
"Does the punishment not hurt you? Or are you too stupid to feel pain?"
Tyr chuckled, low and dark. Then louder.
"Pain?" Tyr wheezed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Pain's the only thing remindin' me I ain't dead yet." His eyes sharpened, cutting through the smoke. "You lot tried t' break me. All you did was season me."
The guard snarled, blood dripping from his temple. His stance sank lower, fists humming with building force.
"You think escaping this cage changes anything? The Celestial Dragons own the seas. The World Government's reach is infinite. Even if you crawl out of here tonight, you'll never be free. You'll just leap from one cage into another."
Tyr stopped. For a heartbeat, he almost looked sober. Then his lips peeled back into a grin too wide, too cruel.
"Then I'll break that cage too."
The guard roared, fists snapping forward.
"DIE, HANMA!!!"
The air collapsed inward as the pseudo-Rokuogan discharged, shockwaves tearing through stone, flames bending as the pressure screamed toward Tyr. It was an attack designed to rupture organs, shatter bones from the inside out, erase a man in a single breath.
For anyone else, it would have been the end.
But Tyr wasn't anyone else.
Tyr's body screamed at him to move—yet he knew he couldn't. He was too slow and too worn down from years of abuse. For the first time in four years… real death loomed.
And then it happened.
A spasm shuddered through his spine, then another, like cords snapping. Muscles along his back writhed, bulging, twisting. His scars stretched and split as something ancient uncoiled within him.
The Hanma demon back.
It burst to life with a sickening crackle, his silhouette swelling, monstrous muscle folding out like the wings of a devil. The veins along his temple flared, his pupils shrank, and the world… slowed.
The guard vanished in a blur—Soru fast, faster than the previous one.
But to Tyr, now, it was like watching a leaf tumble in the wind. His perception sharpened to a knife's edge. His body felt weightless, four times lighter than it had seconds ago, chains of exhaustion and pain falling away.
Every step.
Every twitch.
Every ripple of killing intent—he saw it.
The guard's strike, a world-ender, was suddenly nothing but angles. Tyr's back twisted, muscles screaming in monstrous harmony as he diverted the attack with his forearm.
Bone snapped. Flesh tore. The force shattered the inside of his right arm, leaving it limp, useless, dangling at his side. But he didn't flinch. Didn't scream. Didn't falter.
Because his other side was already moving.
Tyr surged forward, head low, shoulders rolling, and then...
BWHUM.
His knee slammed into the guard's gut with such obscene force that the man folded in half like a broken door hinge. The sound was wet, rupturing, a dull thunderclap that drowned even the fire and screams around them. Spit and blood exploded from the guard's mouth as his ribs caved.
His eyes bulged. His body convulsed. His mouth gaped soundlessly—only one word trying to form.
"...impossible…"
Then his spine bent backward at a grotesque angle, his feet lifting off the ground, and he hit the marble with a lifeless crash.
Silence, for half a heartbeat.
MuHaAhaAhaAh… MuHaAhaAhaAh!!!
The laugh rang out, sharper, darker, carried by firelight and terror. Not a man's laugh anymore. A devil's. The laugh of the Hanma bloodline.
The slaves stared in awe few ones that is still standing from an unknown force that knock out the rest. The nobles shrieked in horror.
Even the flames seemed to recoil as Tyr stood over the corpse, his back still twisted into that infamous demonic tapestry of muscle, a grin carved across his bloodied face.
The guard was gone. Not defeated. Not beaten.
Erased.
And Tyr Hanma laughed.
MuHaAhaAhaAh..!!