Previously on Hakuna, the stakes of the cosmic board were completely reset. We discovered that the shadows harbor far more terrifying enemies than we ever anticipated, moving in the dark corners of the multiverse. We learned that the old, familiar structures have crumbled; the original Demon Demolition Force has been entirely abolished, only to be secretly reinstated and built anew from the ground up in a completely different location.
Furthermore, we found out that the legendary members of the BBC are the core architects—the very founding members who laid the physical and administrative bricks of this modern, pristine DDF Headquarters.
Yet, all this time, a single whisper has echoed through the corridors. For nearly a year, staff and recruits alike have heard rumors of a mysterious, absent 7th member. No one knows his current whereabouts, no one knows the day or hour he will finally return from the dark, but they do know one unyielding truth: he is one of, if not the absolute strongest Founding Member of the BBC.
Who is this legendary figure I speak of?
Well…
Fade in…
The high-security holding room inside the pristine, white walls of the New DDF Headquarters is dead silent.
Hakuna is seen standing calmly in the dead center of the chamber. Heavy, high-tech energy-dampening cuffs are locked tightly around his wrists, humining with a low suppression frequency. Directly behind his massive, filled-out frame, a row of armed tactical guards stand stiffly, their assault weapons raised, keeping their distance from the captive.
He has been systematically hunted down across borders and brought directly to the high-ranking office of the absolute leader of the organization that mobilized an entire army just to bring him in.
Hakuna looks around the state-of-the-art administrative office, a broad smirk breaking across his face. He lets out a loud, echoing laugh, "Haa, I knew it!"
At the far end of the room behind a massive, sleek desk covered in towering stacks of operational blueprints and global deployment files, Enzo slowly raises his head. His eyes widen in absolute disbelief as he drops his pen.
Looking up from his mountain of paperwork, Enzo mutters in pure, unadulterated confusion, "Hakuna?"
The absolute leader of this new, global defense faction is Enzo?
Hakuna shifts his weight, the heavy restraints rattling against each other as he replies with a casual shrug, "Yep, it's me—uhh…"
Before Hakuna can even finish his sentence, a sudden blur cuts through the space. Enzo is already directly in front of him, moving with sheer, instantaneous speed. He completely ignores the guards, aggressively grabbing Hakuna's face with both hands, tilting his head left and right to inspect him closely, scanning every inch of his features to see if he sustained any injuries during the chaotic breach at the Letebele Palace.
Dropping his hands, Enzo lets out a long, heavy breath, his voice laced with a year's worth of built-up frustration. "You just vanished off the face of the earth for nearly an entire year, Hakuna. No warnings, no messages, nothing."
Standing just outside the perimeter, Mabida, the squad commander who had led the raid on the palace, blinks rapidly, his jaw slowly dropping. He looks between his superior officer and the massive captive in cuffs, his voice trembling as he chimes in, "Uhh, sir… are you saying… you mean this man is The Hakuna? The mythical 7th Founding Member of the BBC?"
Enzo doesn't even look back at the squad leader. He just casually waves a hand in dismissal, adjusting his glasses as he replies, "Oh, yeah, this is him. Sorry about the mess he probably made of your team."
The surrounding soldiers instantly freeze, a wave of profound shock washing over the entire room. The air grows incredibly heavy as they realize they just attempted to aggressively arrest a living legend of their own organization.
Mabida squeezes the grip of his weapon, trying to process the sheer absurdity of the situation. He asks, his voice cracking slightly, "You're telling me that this guy… this giant sitting quietly in restraints, is the rumored strongest founding member? The eternal rival to Lord Super himself?"
Hakuna lifts his cuffed hands to cover his face, completely failing to contain his building laughter. The title cracks him up instantly. "Hahaa! 'Lord Super'? Oh man, I never thought I'd live to see the day someone called him that out loud. Lord Super? That is gold."
Enzo sighs, rubbing his temples as he looks at Hakuna's amusement. "Weird, right? I don't even know how it caught on. Everyone in the lower ranks suddenly started calling him tha—ah."
BOOM!
Before Enzo can finish his sentence, the reinforced structural wall directly to Hakuna's right violently explodes into a million pieces. A massive, deafening shockwave tears through the office, throwing a colossal cloud of thick concrete dust and white debris across the pristine room. The guards instantly drop into defensive stances, shielding their eyes.
Through the heavy, shifting dust cloud, a deeply familiar, mocking voice can be heard echoing clearly.
"Well, look who finally decided to show up and grace us with his presence."
Out of the epicenter of the destruction steps Super. He calmly walks straight out of the thick dust cloud caused entirely by, you know, him casually killing the wall and stuff just to make a grand entrance. His posture is radiating supreme confidence, his eyes locked onto his long-lost peer.
Hakuna doesn't even flinch at the flying debris, the light brown glow returning to his eyes as he grins back at the newcomer. "Ahh, there he is… The JEFF…"[1]
Meanwhile…
…At Void…
The setting shifts sharply away from the mortal plane back to the boundless, starless expanse of the ANRI facility. The tension within the massive chamber has reached a violent boiling point.
Leragga stands with his knees bent, his teeth gritted in absolute fury. He aggressively flares his energy, a volatile, chaotic aura erupting around his frame like jagged lightning, cracking the transparent floor beneath his boots.
Flamboyage stands perfectly still a few paces away. He slowly turns his head just a fraction of an inch, catching the display of power in his peripheral vision.
A chilling, confident grin spreads across Flamboyage's face as he says, "Very well then, I'll entertain your—"
Before the final word can even leave his mouth, Leragga completely shatters the distance. He instantly appears directly above Flamboyage, his fist loaded with destructive velocity. In a microsecond, the entire structural area surrounding the two fighters explodes with an immense, blinding cloud of gray dust and spatial debris.
Flamboyage's calm voice slices through the roaring shockwave, entirely unbothered. "You've gotten faster since our last encounter. Interesting."
As the heavy dust begins to clear from the impact zone, the visual reveals that Flamboyage hasn't shifted an inch from his original stance. He has already cleanly blocked Leragga's blinding downward strike with relative ease, using nothing more than the back of his forearm to halt the entire momentum of the attack.
Leragga snarls through his teeth, his eyes bloodshot with rage. "Grrr!"
Refusing to back down, Leragga twists his body in mid-air, channeling all his force into a devastating, high-speed kick aimed directly at Flamboyage's face. But as his boot connects, there is no solid impact—his leg passes completely through Flamboyage's head as if striking a mere illusion.
Leragga's heart skips a beat as his foot hits empty air. He lands heavily, thinking to himself in a sudden panic, "Huh? An afterimage? Where the hell is he?!"
"Looking for me?"
Flamboyage appears directly beside him, his posture completely relaxed, his left hand casually tucked deep into his pocket while his right hand hangs loosely at his side.
Leragga reacts purely on survival instinct, immediately throwing a massive, full-power punch straight toward Flamboyage's exposed jaw.
CRACK!
The fist connects cleanly. Leragga's eyes light up for a fraction of a second as he thinks to himself, "A direct hit?! I actually caught him!"
But his triumph is instantly crushed. The moment his fist touches Flamboyage's skin, a sudden, suffocating, and overwhelming psychological pressure envelops the entire perimeter, freezing the blood in Leragga's veins. Flamboyage's head hasn't even budged from the strike.
Flamboyage looks down at the fist resting against his cheek, his expression dropping into cold indifference. "Do not flatter yourself so easily, insect."
Slowly, effortlessly, Flamboyage begins to flare his own aura.
The output is catastrophic. The moment his energy leaks out, the very ground of the Void begins to violently shake, the walls of the ANRI building groaning under the sheer weight of his presence.
Leragga's arm begins to tremble against Flamboyage's face, his mind reeling as he realizes the sheer gap in their foundational power. He thinks to himself in absolute terror, "There's no questioning it anymore. Of all the multiversal variants I have hunted and fought across timelines, this man… he is undeniably the absolute strongest."
Suddenly, before another word can be uttered, both fighters vanish from sight completely.
BOOM!
A massive, primary structural wing of the ANRI building is suddenly reduced to absolute rubble.
BOOM!
In the blink of an eye, another entire eastern section of the fortress falls, collapsing into dust.
BOOM!
And immediately after, another massive support tower shatters into smithereens.
To put it simply for the audience, the sole cause of all this widespread structural devastation is just because Flamboyage has now officially decided to go on the offensive. He isn't even trying; he is simply moving forward.
Flamboyage appears high in the air, tracking Leragga's desperate movements. He dives downward, his fist aimed like a meteor toward the ground where Leragga is standing. Leragga leaps back just in time as Flamboyage's fist strikes the floor, instantly reducing the entire surrounding area into millions of tiny smithereens, throwing a massive shockwave across the room.
Flamboyage stands up out of the crater, completely spotless, his eyes locked on his opponent. "You are as exceptionally quick to dodge as you are quick to taunt those who are fundamentally superior to you."
Leragga appears a considerable distance away, skidding across the fractured ground. He stands facing downward somewhat, his shoulders heaving as he breathes heavily, his brooding posture casting a dark shadow over his eyes.
When he speaks, his voice is suddenly devoid of its previous panic, turning freezing cold. "There it is. That exact condescending tone. The specific, arrogant voice that sets my entire blood boiling within my veins. I'll kill you right here, Flamboyage. I'll tear you apart and show this entire void that there's absolutely nothing to your legendary status!"
For the first time ever in the history of their rivalry, we see Leragga intensely flaring his entire aura to its absolute, unrestricted limit. The energy pumps out of his body so violently that it physically appears identical to a massive, roaring pillar of blue fire, scorching the very air of the Void.
Flamboyage watches the display, his expression entirely unreadable. He says calmly, "Come on then, Leragga. Show me."
With overwhelming, reality-breaking speed, both Flamboyage and Leragga launch themselves forward, clashing their fists in the center of the room with an explosion of kinetic energy.
Flamboyage maintains a completely stoic, bored expression as their knuckles grind together.
Leragga, conversely, has a face contorted into an expression of pure, unadulterated rage, pouring every ounce of his soul into the strike.
As the pressure forces them to separate and bounce back, Leragga rapidly vibrates both of his fists at an incredibly high frequency—a specialized technique that instantly gives his hands the density and absolute hardness of forged metal.
Flamboyage looks at the vibrating, metallic fists with a flicker of mild curiosity. "Oh?"
Before Leragga can even register the movement, Flamboyage appears directly in front of his face, beginning a relentless, clinical onslaught.
Leragga desperately tries punching with a heavy right hand, but Flamboyage effortlessly uses his left palm to deflect the trajectory away. In the same fluid motion, Flamboyage drives his right fist straight into Leragga's exposed chest. Without pausing for a breath, Flamboyage immediately follows up with a brutal palm uppercut underneath Leragga's chin, lifting his entire body off the ground slightly.
In incredibly quick succession, Flamboyage delivers a devastating, heavy right hook that sends Leragga flying horizontally across the chamber like a missile. But before Leragga can even leave his immediate field of vision, Flamboyage reaches out with lightning reflexes, grabbing Leragga's trailing leg mid-air. With a savage twist, he slams Leragga down onto the ground with so much raw force it sends massive, deep cracks running all over the floorboards.
Leragga's body violently bounces off the impact, and Flamboyage immediately intercepts him on the rebound, his hand wrapping tightly around Leragga's entire face as he flies horizontally toward the nearest reinforced wall, slamming him deeply into the concrete structure with a deafening crash.
Flamboyage releases his grip, letting Leragga slump into the debris. He stands tall, stepping back as he slowly turns his back to face away from Leragga entirely. He asks over his shoulder, "Do you yield?"
Suddenly, before an answer can be given, the entire dimension of the Void begins to violently shake, the foundations rattling with an ominous resonance.
Flamboyage pauses, his eyebrow twitching slightly as he mumbles, "Hmm?"
From the deep crater in the wall, Leragga lets out an earth-shattering roar that tears at the throat, "HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Flamboyage turns back around, watching the rubble fly apart as he says calmly, "Ahh, so you have more hidden power pool in you than I initially thought. Good."
Leragga completely pops out of the wall, his entire body radiating a frantic, desperate energy as he charges forward, ready to fight again with everything he has left.
Flamboyage simply takes a single, calculated step back, his body fluidly and instantly dodging Leragga's incoming lethal attack by a matter of millimeters.
Leragga's eyes widen in sheer disbelief as his strike hits nothing but air. He mutters under his breath, "How did you… how did you move that fast without an aura?"
Immediately, refusing to break his momentum, Leragga converges on him again, throwing a relentless flurry of strikes.
The sharp, repeating sounds of metal heavily hitting a stone-like substance echo violently all around the vast building of ANRI as the shockwaves ripple outward. Flamboyage doesn't even counter; he is just simply and effortlessly dodging and deflecting all of Leragga's high-frequency, metal-fisted blows with basic defensive movements.
From the shadows of the upper corridors, SUPXR, a powerful and rugged variant of Bodega, walks out onto a high balcony to observe the chaos. He looks at the crumbling infrastructure, rubbing the back of his neck as he asks, "What's with all the damn noise down here?"
Excelsior, still leaning calmly against his pillar with his arms crossed, responds without looking up, "Leragga is trying to overthrow Flamboyage. Again."
SUPXR rests his hands on the railing, watching the flashes of blue fire below. He says thoughtfully, "Hmm, maybe this time's actually going to be a little different."
JEFF, still perched comfortably on his high support beam above, queries down, "What do you mean by that, SUPXR?"
SUPXR continues, his sharp eyes tracking the choreography of the fight. "Look at his movements down there. He's actively adapting to the pace. His reaction times are sharper. Maybe something profound happened to him during his travels through the external timelines."
Excelsior tilts his head, a skeptical look on his face. "Enough to actually make him keep up with Flamboyage's base form?"
SUPXR lets out a dark, raspy scoff, "Heh, no. Don't get me wrong, he's definitely changed, but he'll never match Flamboyage in this lifetime." With that final assessment, he turns on his heel and casually walks away back into the shadows.
Down on the main floor, Flamboyage has completely stopped playing defense. He is seen absolutely pummeling Leragga across the arena, breaking through his guards with ease.
Leragga blocks a heavy strike, his arms going numb as he thinks to himself in a spiral of mental anguish, "Even with all the forbidden knowledge I've obtained across the dimensions… he still completely overwhelms me… even with every single variant I track down and defeat, he still outmatches me effortlessly… what kind of terrifying anomaly is this man?!"
With a loud, thunderous bang, Flamboyage lands a powerful, crushing right hook straight to the jaw, driving Leragga directly into the ground. The sheer kinetic impact causes Leragga's body to violently bounce off the shattered floor.
Before he can fall back down, Flamboyage follows through with a brutal kick to the face, sending Leragga rolling across the dusty ground like a ragdoll until he slides to a halt.
Flamboyage stands over him, his arms hanging loosely as he asks down, "Do you still honestly think yourself my equal, Leragga?"
Leragga spits a mouthful of blood onto the floor, pushing himself up with trembling arms. He glares up, retorting through gritted teeth, "You never even saw my true, full power yet… and already you arrogantly judge yourself the undisputed victor?"
Flamboyage's eyes narrow slightly, his interest piqued. He replies with an tone of genuine intrigue, "Oh? Is that so? Then why have you waited this long to show it? Shall I kindly give you a free chance to fully reveal your Talent?"
Leragga slowly stands up, wiping the blood from his mouth as his posture straightens.
He looks Flamboyage dead in the eyes as he then declares with absolute conviction, "I'll show you right now. I'll show you exactly why I am superior to every single entity in this room."
Flamboyage lets out a mocking scoff, "Hah! Superior? You dare speak of superiority when your literal failure in high-tier training has amounted to your physical body permanently aging by 15 full years?"
Flamboyage shifts his weight, entering a formal, deeply disciplined fighting stance for the very first time in the fight.
As he does, his voice drops to a freezing, terrifyingly low octave, "Show me your futile superiority then, old man."
Leragga raises both of his hands to the center of his chest, locking his fingers together to hold a sacred, intricate Kalesvara Mudra sign. As the mudra locks, he closes his eyes and declares, "I am the progenitor of speed. I am that which completely surpasses the limitations of light. I am that which transcends the very fabric of space and time itself…"
The moment the declaration ends, his entire physical body begins to glow with an intense, ethereal light.
A sudden, crushing gravitational pressure is instantly felt throughout the absolute entirety of the Void, making it hard for even Excelsior and JEFF to breathe. Leragga opens his glowing eyes as he says, "I… am… Volante."
In the absolute blink of an eye—faster than the concept of sight—Leragga shatters the space between them. He lands a catastrophic, high-speed attack directly on Flamboyage. Flamboyage managed to raise his arms to block, but the sheer, unyielding momentum of the speed carries both of them violently backwards, smashing straight through a thick structural wall and tumbling into the next sector of the facility.
As they slide to a halt, Flamboyage looks down at his forearm. His sleeve is torn, and there is a visible, faint purple mark on his skin. He thinks to himself in shock, "A bruise…? He actually managed to bruise my flesh?"
A wild, manic smile breaks across Flamboyage's face, his eyes lighting up with a dangerous excitement.
He thinks to himself, "A valiant effort, Leragga. Truly magnificent."
Without a sound, both fighters vanish from the material plane entirely.
They appear and disappear across the vast void with a repeating, thunderous bang, their movements leaving trails of displaced space behind them. Over and over again, they move through the arena, exchanging cosmic blows that possess enough latent kinetic energy to shatter entire galaxies if unleashed in the mortal world.
Then, suddenly, they both halt, standing a few paces apart in the smoking ruins of the room.
Flamboyage lowers his fists slightly, querying with a calm curiosity, "What calls for your sudden halt, Leragga? We were just getting to the meat of it."
Leragga stands panting, his glowing aura flickering as he stares at his opponent. He says, his voice shaking slightly, "You… you haven't even used your true Talent yet… have you?"
Flamboyage looks down at his hands, his expression returning to a cold, flat calm. He replies simply, "I have absolutely no need for it against the likes of you. Although you may have successfully managed to bruise my arm…"
He slowly raises his right arm, displaying the faint purple mark to the entire room.
As he does, his voice carries a chilling weight, "This tiny mark just proves an unyielding fact: at your absolute strongest, you are barely equal to me when I am operating at my minimal."
Leragga's mind completely snaps at the insult. He shouts at the top of his lungs, "Don't you dare patronize me!"
His blue fire aura flashes violently, sending out a massive, concussive shockwave that shatters the remaining glass fixtures in the facility.
Leragga steps forward, his voice desperate and demanding, "Show me your full power, right now! Stop hiding behind your base form! Show me Absolute!"
Flamboyage stands perfectly still, his head lowering as his face is cast in a dark, ominous expression, the shadows hiding his eyes.
Leragga pauses, his heart hammering against his ribs as he thinks to himself, "Did my words actually do something? Is he finally angry? Is he—?"
Suddenly, the entire realm of Void begins shaking violently.
No, it isn't just the Void. The very fabric of the entire Multiverse begins to tremble, the spatial frequencies fluctuating wildly as an ancient, primordial weight drops onto existence.
Leragga stumbles, his knees buckling under the sudden, immense gravity. He mutters in absolute horror, "What… what is this terrifying pressure?"
Flamboyage slowly raises both of his hands, interlocking his thumbs and fingers to hold a complex, divine Yoni Mudra sign right in front of his core. As the mudra locks into place, he speaks, his voice echoing across timelines, "I am the sole Ruler. I am absolute Divinity itself…"
He slowly raises his head, his eyes snapping open as his pupils glow with a brilliant, terrifying crimson light. He says, "I… am… Absolute."
A blinding, red light completely covers the entire area around them, tearing the darkness of the void apart as we finally see Flamboyage unleashing his true, restricted power—the ultimate Talent, Absolute.
Fully covered in a dense, swirling chaotic red aura that seems to warp the very laws of physics around his frame, Flamboyage begins to slowly walk forward, heading directly towards Leragga.
With each single step his boot takes, the floor beneath him cracks deeply, sending out heavy, concussive shockwaves through the air that possess enough ambient pressure to physically suffocate the strongest of the strong.
Leragga steps back, his hands shaking as his mind races frantically in pure panic, "Could it be… could it be that in the entire time I was away traveling through the outer worlds…"
Another massive red shockwave rips around the Void, rattling the pillars.
Leragga stares in absolute awe as he concludes his thought, "…he actually managed to completely master his Talent to the point of Theosis?!"
Another powerful shockwave explodes outward from Flamboyage's stride.
Flamboyage stops walking, looking down at his trembling opponent. He asks, his voice carrying the weight of a god, "Is this truly what you sought, Leragga? To be completely defeated by my strongest state?"
Leragga's survival instincts completely take over his brain. Without thinking, he instinctively takes a panicked step back, his body trembling.
"Oh?" Flamboyage mumbles, noticing the retreat.
In less than a microsecond, Flamboyage appears directly in front of Leragga's face, his red aura burning his eyes. He says down to him, "Don't cower away from me now, not after all that big talk."
Leragga screams in panic, immediately utilizing all his speed to leap backwards across the arena to create distance.
Flamboyage tracks him effortlessly, his voice echoing coldly in Leragga's ears, "You challenge my supremacy before the others, and then you flee the moment I answer."
Leragga is completely terrified, his mouth dry as he realizes he is locked in a cage with a monster.
Flamboyage takes a deep breath, his crimson eyes locking onto his target. "We do not run from battle in this realm…"
As he enters his final, precise fighting stance, the swirling red energy suddenly warps tightly into his skin, completely compressing his massive power directly to his physical body as he concludes, "We end it."
Leragga, realizing there is absolutely no escape, channels every remaining drop of his blue fire aura, finding a new found, desperate courage born from pure terror. He lets out a final cry and flies at maximum velocity directly towards Flamboyage.
FLASH!
In a single, imperceptible instant, the motion stops.
Before Leragga's strike can even come close, a blur occurs. The scene instantly cuts to the other side of the massive room, where Leragga is seen completely knocked out cold, his body deeply embedded into the far wall, entirely unconscious.
Flamboyage is seen standing in the center of the room, slowly lowering his right arm. His fist is heavily engulfed in thick, white smoke, likely from the sheer friction and heat generated by punching Leragga into oblivion.
He looks at the unconscious form for a long moment, before exhaling slowly. He says to the quiet room, "I will spare your life today, Leragga. Simply because failure does not oppose success, but is merely an essential part of it. You learned that valuable lesson today."
With a quiet hum, Flamboyage's compressed red aura fully dissipates into the air, and his glowing crimson eyes return to their normal state.
He slowly turns his back to the destruction, walking away towards the exit corridor. As he walks, he says without looking back, "When he finally awakens from that wall, tell him he will personally repair every single piece of ANRI he broke."
JEFF watches him go from his high beam, leaning forward as he asks, "Where will you be heading now, Flamboyage?"
Flamboyage doesn't stop walking, his figure slowly disappearing into the dark corridor as he replies simply, "Training."
Fade out…
End of Episode 76…
[1] Now, although this happens to be the exact name of Super’s multiversal variant, it also happens to be his absolute favorite personal nickname within the inner circle.