Becoming A God In Another World With My Crush

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Xander darted forward in a violet blur, every movement was nearly inhuman. The cracks of light along his arms pulsed like a storm trying to tear through skin.

Seven heads struck like whips as he weaved, ducked, slid and pivoted, the air hissing as venom missed him by inches.

"You're gonna have to do better than that, tough shit!" he snarled, his eyes glowing like lightening. One head lunged and Xavier met it halfway as the dagger flashed in a clean arc, perfect strike. Slice!

A head dropped, hissing even as it dissolved another reared behind it. Xander spun and severed that one too. The Hydra screamed and blood sprayed across the clearing, sizzling where it hit the grass. And then the stumps pulsed, shuddered and grew back.

"Of course it regenerates," Xander muttered, backing up two steps. "Fucking hydra logic."

New heads snapped their jaws, twice as fast, twice as vicious, he ducked another head, rolled beneath a second, the dagger slicing through muscle as the sparks continued to erupted from his skin, the glow was spreading along his arms now. His hands were shaking.

And the he remembered sitting in his father's office, reading his father's notes on mythical creatures. Never aim for the heads of a Hydra, another strike from the Hydra. Xander barely dodged it.

His breath caught in his chest.

A memory surged clearer now, hands

The scent of old paper drifted through the small office.

An eight years old Xander sat cross-legged on the threadbare rug, a book heavy across his lap. His gruff, usually grumpy father sat behind the desk, a chipped mug of coffee steaming beside him. He glanced up from his own notes, eyes catching the picture upside down.

"That one's nasty," he had said. "Hydras don't die easy."

Xander's brow furrowed. "Even if you cut off all the heads?"

A grin tugged at the old man's mouth.

"Especially if you cut off all the heads. They grow back. Faster and meaner."

"So how do you kill it?" Xander asked, pulling the book closer to his chest like the answer might leap out.

His father leaned forward, tapping the page with the end of his pen.

"There," he said. "Right under the chest. Hidden. It's got a core...a stone that pulses like it's a heart. Hit that, and the whole thing folds and it dies instantly."

Xander nodded slowly and adjusted his glasses. "Do all fantasy heroes know that?"

"Only the ones who paid attention," his father said, ruffling his hair. He was a good man when he wasn't beating the living shit out of his mother. "And those are usually the ones who live."

"'Hydras regenerate. Core must be destroyed. Heart lies beneath the lowest sternum, wrapped in bone and scales."'

Xander blinked when he saw it. A faint and subtle glow, flickering deep in the beast's chest.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" he gasped, dragging a sleeve across his face. "You've had a shiny target this entire time?!"

The Hydra reared back. Snarled. Its tail smashed through a tree somewhere behind him.

Xander's lips curled into a grin that had no right to exist.

"Okay," he whispered, dagger tightening in his grip, violet light pooling in his palms. The Hydra roared, claws digging into the earth as its many heads lashed wildly in the air. One eye was still leaking blackish red blood. Three new heads were still growing.

He growled. "Then let's end this."

He leapt and grabbed onto the scaled foreleg, which was slick, almost impossible to hold. The beast reared back and he held on anyway, lightning sparked across his arms, making every inch of contact burn. The dagger hummed in his hand like it recognized what came next.

He climbed and nearly slipped, then caught hold again. On one hand, he panted as he did so, locking eyes with the glow beneath the beast's armored chest. "There you are."

He drove the dagger straight into the core.

The Hydra screamed and it howled. The sound cracked the sky. A shockwave erupted from the wound, violet light exploding in every direction and branches snapped off. The heads began to drop, one after the other, they didn't grow back this time...the heads crumbled and dissolved into ash.

Xander staggered as the dagger slipped from his fingers, hitting the ground with a dull thud. Iris moved before she could even think.

"Xander—!"

She caught him just as his legs gave way, arms looping under his shoulders as they both dropped to the ground. His body felt like it was radiating fever.

Like he was burning from the inside out.

"Xander, Xander, you did it—oh my god!, you actually—" her voice cracked around the disbelief, around the tears gathering too fast behind her eyes.

He blinked, barely. His lashes trembled behind his cracked glasses.

"...It's dead… right?" he rasped.

She nodded, even though he probably couldn't see it. "Yes. It's gone. It's over. You—" Her breath broke. "You did so good!"

He smiled a little, it was a crooked and tired smile. "Th...that was fucking cool…"

His head dipped and the glow in his eyes faded then he went completely still in her arms.

"Xander?" Iris whispered.

No response and her arms tightened around him, his skin was still warm. Too warm. Iris lowered him to the ground as gently as she could, but he was heavy, and burning.

She flinched at the heat rolling off his skin, way too much heat. Her hands hovered, unsure where to touch, what to do. "Okay... okay, Xander, you're just—overheating or something, right?" she said shakily. "Not dying. Not after all that!"

Iris sat there for what felt like hour, the forest around her had fallen into a strange kind of silence, just the wind slipping through branches and the occasional crackle of something still cooling in the dirt.

They were both unconscious, now.

Eli still lay slumped beneath the moss-covered tree, his breathing shallow but even.

Xander…

Xander hadn't moved since he collapsed. His skin still pulsed faintly beneath the glow, heat rolling off him like a slow fever.

Iris hugged him closer anyway.

His head rested against her shoulder, heavy and too warm, and her arms wrapped around him like she could shield him from whatever was still burning under his skin.

"I don't know... what to do," she whispered into his hair. "I don't have a plan. I'm not so good at this."

A breeze rustled overhead.

She tilted her head back, emerald eyes fluttering shut for a moment. "I just… wish we could go back," she breathed. "We might just die here..."

Her voice cracked as she said. "I wish we could go home."