Still in the Past

  One Month After Suzi's Death

  Location: Unknown

  Yael's Private Laboratory

  Underground - Sector 5

  Miss Karla, after saying goodbye to her brother Karl, went on a more "personal retreat," accompanied by Yael, without Luci, Yael's daughter, or even Karl himself knowing. The mysterious destination to which Karla traveled alongside Yael was, in truth, a place where she would undergo nearly a month of intense training.

  Karla, consumed by her thirst for revenge, channeled her rage and hatred toward the Oculi. This fury drove her not only to become stronger, but also to become far more ruthless and bloodthirsty in her combat style and fighting strategies, which grew increasingly advanced, despite her being only fourteen years old.

  Yael, Luci's father, left his daughter in charge of taking care of Karl, Karla's brother, since he had not directed his frustration toward revenge, but toward justice. A blind form of justice that would gradually consume him from the inside out in the future.

  Meanwhile, Karla, Karl's younger sister, dove headfirst into revenge rather than justice, after she and Karl had lost their little sister, Suzi, less than a month earlier, shortly before Karla entered Yael's testing laboratory for the first time.

  During three exhausting and brutal weeks of training, designed and conducted by Yael, Karla fought against hundreds of advanced and deadly robot prototypes, using weapons developed by Yael to enhance her agility and combat reflexes.

  At the end of the fourth week and the beginning of what would be the first week of an entire month of training in that place, Karla met the necessary requirements to enter the most dangerous and lethal tests devised by Yael in that gigantic testing chamber, part of his genetic and military laboratory.

  Yael supervised this entire month of Karla's intensive training to ensure that she not only met the minimum physical requirements, but also refined her skills to the utmost after the exhausting routines and daily battles in that facility.

  So that, when she finally entered the last training room, beginning the final phase of the regimen created by Yael, she would not be killed in less than ten seconds by what would be her final opponent.

  A being that Yael, after countless attempts, had finally managed to capture, not only for study, but also for genetic testing in the name of humanity's future salvation.

  Yael's Laboratory

  Main Final Training Room

  Five Kilometers Underground

  Karla, now dressed in her definitive training attire, stood before the door to the last training room inside Yael's laboratory.

  The door began to open slowly upward, revealing not just one, but a second, even thicker door, which protected the room from whatever was imprisoned inside.

  This second, fully energized protective door had been designed to prevent any escape attempt from within that place, even by someone who was already imprisoned.

  At the far end of the room, Karla saw a single person: a man seated on a chair in the center of that vast space. At first glance, he seemed to be nothing more than a tall man, nearly two meters in height, with an aged appearance and scars on his face.

  But when he lifted his gaze and looked directly at Karla as she entered the room, it became evident that he was the final opponent, carefully chosen by Yael for her last training.

  He was nothing less than a genuine Oculi, who had been imprisoned in that place by Yael many years ago, in absolute secrecy, even from the Sagittarius organization.

  The very organization for which Yael had worked for so long as chief scientist. The man's eyes, now completely black, confirmed to Karla that he was truly an Oculi, and not a human opponent.

  Yael, through the room's loudspeaker, confirmed that Karla's final adversary was indeed an Oculi. And that, after the two protective doors of the great training room closed, Karla would have only two ways to leave.

  One of them would be by defeating and killing her opponent, or by dying at the hands of that Oculi man who stood only a few meters away, observing her with an intriguing curiosity.

  Still chained to the chair, the Oculi watched her calmly, keeping a playful and excited smile on his lips for what was about to happen.

  Even wounded and partially restrained by Yael, he was still a powerful opponent, capable of killing ordinary humans as if they were nothing, using his special abilities.

  Karla, despite being only fourteen years old, knew from the theoretical information Yael had given her after months of training and study that it was possible to defeat an Oculi.

  But that a human could not do it. Only something that shared certain characteristics could have a chance. Aware of this, Karla instinctively wished to protect her brother Karl, even though he was only one year older than her.

  After diving headfirst into her quest for revenge against the Oculi for the death of her little sister Suzi, she developed a distorted sense of possessive protection toward her brother.

  She feared being a burden in his life and, if she failed to become strong enough, forcing him to save her someday, putting his own life at risk.

  Karl, after all, was now the only family she had left after Suzi's death. And while the two of them fought against the Oculi, now as elite members of the Sagittarius organization after everything they had endured over the last three years of genetic testing, Karla prepared herself for the confrontation.

  With the definitive closing of the two doors, sealing the only exit for both Karla and the Oculi, the atmosphere in the room changed in a surreal way, becoming heavier and denser.

  At first, Karla did not understand, but soon she realized it was the mental influence of the Oculi, who was beginning to gradually release his abilities, even while bound by the chains that suppressed one hundred percent of his full power.

  Karla, in her reinforced black training outfit, presented an intriguing sight to the Oculi. Looking toward the camera, directed at whoever was observing the scene, she smiled innocently and gently, then turned that smile toward the Oculi.

  As she released her hair, previously tied by a small golden cord, which she placed in her pocket. Her long black hair seemed to dance softly before the Oculi's eyes.

  Yael, watching everything through the cameras spread across the room, spoke his final words through the loudspeaker, wishing Karla good luck and encouraging her to give everything she had.

  For before her stood one of the Oculi involved, even if indirectly, in the accident that resulted in her sister Suzi's severe injuries.

  Injuries that left her bedridden for consecutive months until her death. With those words, Karla's innocent gaze and playful posture changed.

  The Oculi no longer saw a fourteen-year-old child, innocent and kind, but someone with an unbreakable will and an obsessive desire for revenge.

  And not only that: she wanted to become stronger than anyone else, for the sake of what remained of her family, which now consisted solely of her older brother, Karl.

  After the loss of her little sister two months earlier, Karla was determined to take revenge. The chains around the Oculi's arms and legs were released when Yael pressed a few buttons in his control room.

  Immediately, the Oculi lunged toward Karla with a smile, without hesitation, creating a slight sonic boom as he left the place where he had been. The ground behind him cracked, and the chair on which he had been sitting was violently hurled against the wall.

  This was the result of using his Oculi abilities, even though they were still limited by the bracelet on his neck. Yael had placed that limiting bracelet for safety, allowing the Oculi to release up to seventy-five percent of his total strength-still lethal, even to Karla, if he used all of it.

  As the Oculi advanced mercilessly toward Karla, he did not wish to kill her quickly, but rather to entertain himself for a few minutes before taking her life in the most painful way possible. To him, Karla was nothing more than a pathetic human.

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  However, the Oculi soon realized that Karla was easily dodging his successive strikes with agility and speed. There was within her a presence that conveyed an irritating superiority, something that deeply unsettled him.

  After 60 Seconds of Combat

  Underground - Sector 10

  Still Inside That Room

  In less than a single minute of combat at a speed so extreme that ordinary human eyes could never perceive it, that man had missed at least five hundred strikes aimed at Miss Karla.

  So many kicks and punches were unleashed, all carrying that intense Oculi force, yet none of them was enough to touch even a single strand of Karla's hair.

  Many times, she seemed to dance and float as she evaded the man throughout the fight, which consequently left that large training room-

  Once intact in its structure-its floor, ceiling, and walls now visibly damaged and crumbling after only one minute of battle.

  This was caused both by the man's failed attacks and by the air pressure released from his fists and kicks as they missed Karla's body.

  If even one of those kicks or punches had struck an ordinary human, it would have easily torn them apart, as if any human being standing in that man's path were nothing.

  After 120 Seconds of Combat

  Underground - Sector 10

  Still Inside That Room

  As the second minute of combat between Karla and that man unfolded at a surreal speed, Yael's cameras in the control room often failed to keep up perfectly, even when adjusted to reduced speed.

  The man, subtly yet perceptibly during his evasions, realized that all of Karla's desire for revenge was being channeled not only toward him, but toward the entire Oculi race.

  The Oculi, although possessing a human appearance, hid beneath skin and organs similar to those of humans a humanoid creature with supernatural and bloodthirsty abilities, in the eyes of the Sagittarius Corporation.

  Moreover, very few people and governments were aware of the existence of the Oculi-beings who, since the 1960s, had remained hidden and infiltrated within human society.

  During that second minute of battle, the Oculi man observed Karla's body in disbelief. He saw the gradual beginning of an invisible force that slightly distorted the environment around her by a few centimeters.

  That force seemed to resemble translucent flames emanating from within Karla, without damaging her clothes or her body, as she gradually released her power.

  To that Oculi man, this was impossible for a common human, since such a release of power was seen only in a genuine Oculi, and never in a human-who could not fully manipulate the forces of the "Void" at will.

  After a few seconds, the battle reached its climax. The man noticed a movement that, to his eyes, seemed like a "slip" by Karla during the fight.

  He tried to end once and for all that irritating battle against her. However, he was surprised by the full activation of her abilities, who, after letting out a restrained-

  Yet amused-laugh, stopped his fist that was heading toward her face with just one hand, as if it were the most trivial and effortless thing in the world.

  That block generated a shockwave that sank the ground around both of them by several centimeters, within a radius of five meters.

  Immediately after, he froze in disbelief as his body instinctively urged him to retreat from that young human girl before him, fearing that something lethal would be done to him in the next few seconds.

  The air in the entire room seemed to grow heavier as Karla began to gently float a few centimeters in front of the man, who felt his body paralyzed by fear in the face of the sensation she emanated.

  Before the man's widened eyes, Karla, in a slowed-down world, was reflected in his gaze, her long hair seeming to dance in the air less than a meter away from him.

  It was as if every strand of Karla's hair were submerged in water, moving softly, while her invisible force emanated from her body in an intense yet calm manner.

  Karla, with an innocent gaze and at the same time smiling in an empty way, whispered to the man that she would show no mercy to his race from that day forward.

  After those words, Karla advanced with a single kick that sliced through the air, making it crack under pressure in microseconds, aimed at the man's face.

  The kick struck successfully, shattering part of his face and hurling him against the wall behind him. The impact was brutal, causing the wall to crack along with all four walls of the room.

  Due to the release of force across the entire structure of the training room, it vibrated for a few moments. Time then resumed its normal flow, and Karla felt the pulse generated around her by the man's impact.

  The man's body was embedded in the wall behind him, and after a few seconds, as the smoke dissipated in the air before Karla-

  The surreal scene was revealed: the man, gravely injured, expelling his black blood while coughing in pain. He felt that his body had suffered damage from that blow.

  Karla, however, had not focused the strength and subsequent damage of that kick on the man's body, but rather on his essence, behind the organic Oculi body, which was her true target.

  After so much time beside Yael over the past four weeks, Karla knew that it was still impossible to severely injure the physical body of a genuine Oculi.

  The only way to cause serious damage was by striking an Oculi's essence. The essence was the most sensitive part behind the apparently human body of an Oculi.

  They could regenerate their bodies, but not their essence, once it was damaged or directly attacked with a strike using the "Void."

  Before the man's incredulous eyes, as he cried black blood, he tried to look at Karla, seeing through his still-trembling vision the debris before him.

  He witnessed the terrifying scene of Karla gracefully returning to the ground, both feet touching the floor, ceasing to float and forming the surreal image of a single, graceful child who radiated such an imposing presence to a genuine Oculi.

  Her long, black hair swayed gently as if submerged in water, while her abilities remained fully active.

  Karla was not an ordinary human; she was one of the three surviving children of the genetic experiments that transformed humans into hybrids.

  Karla was one of the three most powerful children successfully created by genetic scientists, after countless manipulations performed by the best scientists of the human project called Sagittarius.

  Karla (14 years old) and her older brother by one year, Karl (15 years old), were the two siblings known as the "Miracula." The third and final person was none other than Luci, the 17-year-old girl, Yael's daughter.

  With her breathing no longer restrained, now more relaxed and joyful, feeling freed from the shackles that made her think too much and unable to act-

  Karla, with her black garments swaying and the ground beginning to crack around her with each new heartbeat, felt increasingly motivated and obsessive about destroying all Oculi.

  Her eyes, after closing for a single second and opening again, began to take on a completely black coloration, with no trace of the white found in ordinary humans, thus losing both of their irises in the process.

  Before that surreal sight, the man saw with his own eyes the most bizarre and horrific creation humanity had achieved in such a short time since the 1960s, with its so-called pathetic science, finally able to confront the Oculi on equal terms for the first time.

  Yael's Laboratory

  Underground - Sector 25

  General Control Room

  Mr. Yael, observing the entire situation through the room's security cameras, realizes-through the data received from the measurement devices implanted in Miss Karla.

  That even at only fourteen years old, and after nearly three years of a painful process alongside her brother, Karl, to become a hybrid with the black blood of the Oculi merged with her human red blood.

  She had just reached the complete awakening of her abilities, even if they were not yet refined. Karla, however, had not realized that her eyes had become entirely black and without irises, a clear sign of her transformation.

  This happened because genuine Oculi, when using their abilities to their fullest, reveal their eyes as completely white if they are Oculi Albi, or completely black if they are Oculi Nigri.

  Upon noticing this change, Yael does something he should not do, but his obsessive scientific side compels him to act, wishing to see how far Karla's awakening can go, even without refinement.

  He reactivates one of the room's cameras that had previously been disabled, revealing that another person is observing Yael from a distance, without his knowledge. Yael's system had been hacked in a subtle and imperceptible way.

  Allowing the data and the live images of the clash between Karla and the Oculi in the room to be viewed by none other than Mr. Omega, the leader of the Sagittarius organization.

  The one who secretly ruled the world through the four powerful families representing the continents, with economic influence over all nations.

  In the darkness of his luxurious room, Mr. Omega sipped a pleasurable drink while watching the projection of the fight between Karla and the Oculi on his massive screen.

  He hoped that Yael's boldness, in hiding such an entire structure of laboratories and cryogenic testing rooms-containing even living Oculi test subjects-would not be a waste of its latent potential.

  Omega deeply admired Yael, to the point of allowing him to lead a sector within the Sagittarius organization for so many consecutive years, in the name of humanity's fight against the Oculi.

  In Mr. Omega's strict eyes, Yael was nothing less than the greatest genetic scientist who had ever set foot on Earth in all centuries of human history.

  A Few Moments Later

  Underground - Sector 10

  Inside the Training Room

  The last artifact created by Yael, placed around the neck of that Oculi man to limit his abilities, was finally deactivated remotely by Yael, without Karla being informed.

  Even in the fear he felt when facing the innocent Karla before him, the man realized that the bracelet around his neck had been deactivated and had fallen to the floor.

  Losing the glow of its functionality. Karla noticed the smile forming on the Oculi man's face as black blood ran from his mouth.

  He passed one hand over his neck, checking whether the bracelet had truly fallen. And his smile became even more psychopathic, revealing white teeth stained with black blood.

  Understanding that he was finally free from Yael's limiters, ever since the moment he had been imprisoned and made a test subject for the scientist's studies, pleasure spread openly across his face.

  He loosened himself, falling to his knees and wiping his mouth with one hand, while the black blood scattered across the debris returned drop by drop to his open wounds.

  Karla, intrigued by that strange sight, looked around and saw the droplets of black blood returning to the man. She thought of speaking to Yael to ask what was happening.

  But she was taken by surprise by the extreme speed with which the man advanced toward her. A single punch to the stomach violently launched Karla against the wall, making her spit out a stream of blood and briefly lose consciousness.

  In the very next second, she saw the man grab her by the neck and throw her against another wall, clearly enjoying himself. Quickly, Karla tried to regain her awareness and counterattack, but she was again captured by one of the man's hands.

  He held her tightly by one of her legs while she tried to kick with all her strength. In the blink of an eye, Karla was violently thrown-not against the walls as before, but against the ceiling, where her body became embedded and sunk into it.

  The surreal scene of Karla pinned to the ceiling, bleeding and with a vengeance-hungry expression, revealed the intense pain she felt, even if it was still bearable.

  She looked down at the man, who smiled from below on the floor, watching her with several open cuts, while drops of blood fell over him.

  Then, a whisper echoed in Karla's mind, and for an instant she saw flashes of a vision of her brother, Karl.

  He was screaming and trying to reach her, while being devoured by the flames of an explosion that destroyed everything.

  Karla froze, her eyes wide open with burning hatred. Then, she lunged furiously toward the man below her, destroying part of the ceiling as she used her abilities.

  Thus, what would become the third "round" of that bloody and violent clash began once more. Debris flew in all directions throughout the room.

  While the pulses of energy generated by the rapid and intense blows exchanged between Karla and the Oculi man collided. Both were struck several times, bleeding and screaming in pain, yet they kept advancing, without retreating a single meter.