The library's atmosphere was suffocating, beating down all who dwelled there with an ever-present silence. Lit only by sparse candles, the dull-colored bookshelves looked to be shadowy giants, rooted to their place in the eerie stillness of the room. Obviously, the perfect kind of place for a fidgety, irritable loudmouth like Julian Leone, who, admittedly, was only there to score some homework answers from the resident study group.
"Yo, Alice. What'd you get for question five?" Julian's eyes crept to his fellow weapon's homework, praying desperately that she'd forgive his less-than-warm interactions with her in the past few months. Just as he glanced over the first word of her sentence-long answer, the paper was cruelly yanked out of his sight, like finding a flashlight in the dark only for it to die seconds later.
Alice's prim and proper face contorted into a snide look, betraying Julian's pleading eyes. "Maybe if you'd studied more you wouldn't be in this predicament. Allow me to be frank, Julian; it costed my family hundreds to get me here, hours upon days to condition my weapon form for meister use, God knows how time poured into reviewing the material for classes, and you expect me to lend someone like you a hand for free?"
Julian could hear the veins popping in his forehead, but decided to play it off as his father often did during many a poker game, keeping his expression cool and without blemish. "Well, if I can get about as far as you did with nothing but a bus pass for fifty bucks and forged paperwork, then yeah. Maybe." For once in a lifetime, he managed to ruffle Alice's unshakable forbearance, her eyes wide and mouth agape at the audacity of the statement. The anger in her face spiked before fiercely focusing back to her homework.
"...Regardless, you won't be sneaking any answers from me." Alice muttered, and Julian knew there was no room left to negotiate with her.
"Julian," Across the table, a low voice spoke his name with a quiet impatience to it, sending chills up his spine. Cole's deep brown eyes burnt a hole into the scrawny blond, holding a look that wasn't quite a scowl but intimidating nonetheless. "Please refrain from verbal rough-housing within the study table, as we prefer to keep this a studious and quiet environment. The same applies to you, Alice." He concluded, returning to his own stack of schoolwork to complete. Alice resigned herself to a huff, putting a thick book in-between her and Julian.
Eh, I still got options. He scanned carefully the table members, taking note of each face. Alice was already a no-go, Cole was too fed up with his shenanigans, he had a creeping suspicion Georgina wasn't too fond of him, and lastly, Cassiel. His eyes lit like glistening diamonds—surely his meister would be happy to help, probably. He poked her shoulder, grabbing her attention. "Hey, Cassiel—"
"Cassiel, you have to read this part." A second voice chirped up, diverting the Esper's focus away from him. Julian leaned on the table to catch a glimpse of the perpetrator, which slowly morphed into a glare once he saw who; Georgina, that cunning introvert, who spent most of her time reading comics, except around Cassiel, in which case, she became the DWMA's most talkative student.
"Ah, is this one of those mayn-gahs you've told me oh-so-much about, Georgina?" She studied the monochrome pages with wide eyes, flipping it sideways and upside down before Georgina gently steadied it with her (at the moment, only) left arm.
"Yeah, I f-figured you might like it. Basically, it's about this really hairy hero named Two Kicks Man—that's also the name of the manga—and a-as it implies, he kills everything in just two kicks! But, but, but, he has a noble spirit! And the public hates him due to contrived coincidences, but thankfully, there's no brooding, and..." She went on, somehow maintaining Cassiel's interest for entire monologues further while Julian took a trip straight to zonesville, repeatedly nudging Cassiel and making all-too-obvious gagging noises.
"What?" After a solid two minutes of uninterruption, the Esper whipped around, jolting Julian up with a surprising anger in her expression.
The greaser became tentative, casually leaning on the table with his elbow and looking elsewhere. "Yeah... So, uh, whadjya get for number five, anyway?"
She was brief and straight to the point, letting Julian copy it down before picking up where she left off in her conversation with Georgina. "Come on, really? Aren't you just a little embarrassed by this?" He muttered, reclining in his chair with a feeling he hesitated to describe as jealousy.
"Well, Julian, I'm not quite sure you're at this level of reading comprehension" Julian didn't expect to get a reply, one eye opening to the sound of Georgina's passive-aggressive tone. A residual temper in his gut slowly flared back up, with both girls' eyes on him.
"What are you talking about? There's gotta be only one or two words per page!" His fingers bent inward, nails digging into the hardwood of the table.
Georgina blinked, hardly fazed. "...Yeah, your point being?"
Leone snapped, rising to a half-stand. "Are you implyin' what I think you're implyin'?" In hindsight, he thought it amazing how he could maintain a degree of composure with the much-harsher Alice, yet this girl, only about Cassiel's height, perhaps shorter, could drive him mad with just a few soft-spoken words.
"A-hem." A pair of armored boots clanged behind him, freezing him to the spot as he realized the hole he had dug for himself.
"H-Hey!" Julian's forced departure from the library wasn't nearly as gentle as he had hoped, quite literally kicked out of the room and onto the floor.
"Terribly sorry, Julian, I do hope no lasting injuries were sustained from that. But, I made my intentions clear, and you chose to disobey. Good day." Cole apologized, though it didn't help to ease his residual bitterness.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm out." He waved backhandedly, walking through the sparsely-populated hallway well after school without direction. His face remained blank, and his newfound loneliness was only punctuated by the sound of his echoing footsteps ringing into the nothingness for nobody to hear except his sour self. In a desire to rid himself of the indescribable emptiness, he reached for his cell, scrolling through his meager list of contacts desperately. 'Friends' who hadn't spoken to him in months clogged the screen from head-to-toe, making Julian twitch an eye at the sight of it. "Lousy cowards, all of you..." Every name he saw, every face who had left him for their own sorry skins, he cursed.
"Wait." His thumb stopped abruptly, honing in on one name, one name that didn't give him a migraine to look at. He leaned against a locker, sighing before pressing the phone to his ear.
Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz!
The sleeping giant gradually rose from his slumber, stirred by an incessant buzzing from his pocket. Dart's heavy eyelids narrowed, flinching at the light of his phone screen despite it being broad daylight out. Without looking, he laid the phone on the side of his head, lacking the energy to keep it held. "Hello...?"
"Yo, Dart." The voice on the other end nearly toppled Dart off the couch, rousing him to sit up with a revived energy.
"Julian Marcello Leone! Never thought I'd see the day!" He was still reeling from the shock, holding the phone in front of his face to make sure his senses hadn't defied him. He sat up on the couch's cushion, wondering if Julian could hear him bellowing from one of the neighboring apartments. "Y'know in our three months of friendship, you never bothered to call! Not once!"
"Dart," the weapon began, but he refused to Julian get a word in edgewise.
"But nothin'! There's no excuse for that kinda behavior! Y'know how much this heart has been hurting 'cause my dear friend's been neglecting our—"
"Dart, shut up for a sec." Julian cut in swiftly, allowing the meister to stop and breathe for a moment while he took the conversation's reins. "...You wanna hang out today?"
"A-A-A-A-A-A-A-Ah..." He fell short of words, forcing a gulp down his throat.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Julian looked down to see that Dart had hung up, much to his dismay. "What the Hell...?" He narrowed his eyes, wondering what had caused the meister's short-circuit, so to speak. Kicking up from the lockers, he began his exit, hands shoved in his pockets as he stormed away in anger and self-pity.
Though, the walk down the hall felt a bit different than moments ago. It was the same scenery, nobody in sight, but the silence was no longer all-consuming. No, there was something filling in the gaps of white noise, something coming Julian's way. Tapping, tapping, growing louder and louder until it finally piqued his curiosity enough to make him turn around.
A loud skidding of sneakers against the squeaky floor echoed into the quiet hallway, accompanied by a speed-generated dust cloud. Just feet away stood Dart, wide-eyed, staring at Julian in both urgency and wonder. "...Y'said you wanted to hang out?"
"Y-yeah." He wasn't quite sure whether to be flattered or terrified at Dart's startlingly swift arrival, but welcomed it nonetheless. "Anyways, what do you wanna do?" Despite asking, he had no intention of letting Dart choose their plans for the afternoon; his country sensibilities were far from what Julian had in mind.
The bush-headed teen became pensive, considering the question with his chin laid on his palm. "I'unno. Me and Alice were actually headed to do a high-rank mission t'gether, do you and Cassiel wanna come too?"
Julian's mental gears began their rotations, grinding together an excuse in no time flat. "Oh, them? They're busy. Studying for something, probably. Let's just do something else, alright?" He shrugged, shaking his head as if he was genuinely sorry.
"Then..." Dart pursed his lips at Julian, which he could only interpret as a bad sign. His fingers snapped, hit with an optimistic spark that the weapon couldn't share with him. "Why don't you be my weapon?"
Leone was taken aback, openly gawking at the proposal. "What?" Dart wasn't fazed in the slightest, his face and tone completely serious. Truth be told, however, Julian didn't feel quite all that uncomfortable at the idea. It was completely foreign to him, but at the same time he wondered why not, like being faced with an exotic dish. "I mean... I guess." His face reddened, not wanting to admit his increasing willingness to experiment.
Dart beamed and went in for a high-five. "Aw yeah, dream team! Up top!"
The hand dangled in the air, awaiting Julian's response. "Dart..." He sighed, looking away in what appeared to be embarrassment. "Dream team!" His palm aggressively smacked against Dart's, grabbing it and transitioning to a rough handshake in brotherly fashion. "We're gonna be the new hit thing! Unbeatable, I tell ya!" Somehow, Dart had managed to rope Julian into this zany scheme, and somehow, he was one-hundred percent ready to act on it, perhaps even more so than Dart.
"Don't forget, you might run into a few others!" Lord Death waved to Justin Law as the latter made his departure from the Death Room, walking down the long guillotine path, though he showed no signs of having heard the Reaper. For a moment, he considered giving Law a good wallop on the head, but decided against it; he could always gossip with Spirit about it later anyways. And now, only Lord Death remained in the dimensional pocket that laid in the center of the academy. A sigh broke through his mask, noting how uncomfortable it was to hear his voice, his natural voice, when nobody was around to banter with. Millenia could go by in a few days for Lord Death, and yet, staring at the mirror and meeting his own aged self in the reflection while awaiting a call from Kidd, was enough to put a dent in his immortal psyche. He remained still, uncannily so, for the sake of formality, yet he strained himself to do so, making him question if he was any different from the humans he governed over. When the mirror finally began to ripple, a great sigh escaped the Reaper, his figure slouching before bouncing straight back up. The numbers forty-two, forty-two, five sixty-four, became smudged on the mirror, blurring out Lord Death's reflection until someone entirely new stood on the other side of the mirror.
"Father," Kidd's voice came in before the mirror had fully formed, giving his father a brief shock.
"Kidd!" It was unprofessional, especially for that of an Elder God, but after his son's long absence, Lord Death couldn't hold it in. "Well, how have things been?" It almost slipped his mind that Kidd and several others were on nothing short of a military expedition, before correcting his levity with a brief a-hem.
"It's been... interesting. Witch architecture is quite something..." His golden eyes darted to the side, biting his tongue as if to keep a few words inward.
"Let it out, Kidd."
"Thecolorschemelacksanysortofconsistency,northeabhorrentstrcutureofthebuildings,doyouKNOWhowmanyspiralstheyputontheirhouses,despitehowlittletheyactualllyrequirethem?ItsutterlyINANEfatherIcringeatthesightofitandUGH!" Kid's mouth motored away, letting out what Lord Death suspected was months' worth of pent-up frustration. Lord Death nodded understandingly, just glad to see his son alive. Before long, Kidd halted himself, sighing one last time and clearing his throat.
"Hey Kidd, who ya talkin' to over there? Is it your girlfriend?" A shrill cry from out of the mirror's scope broke up the conversation, making Kidd's head whip around.
"It's my dad!" The young Reaper shouted, his expression turning from anger to shock as the sound of quick footsteps grew closer. "Hey, what do you think you're—" Kidd was punched out of the mirror's frame, replaced with Black Star, his face displayed front and center.
"You really need to work on getting to the point, Kidd! This is a mission report, remember?!" Black Star chided, making an effort to show off his muscles and recent battle scars.
"Listen here, you!" Kidd took hold of the call, slamming Black Star to the floor with a heel kick. "As I was saying—" Just as everything reached a relative calm, a sizeable book thwapped in his face, disabling the Reaper into a state of shock before crumpling to the ground like a wet paper bag.
"Erm..." Lord Death paused, still trying to catch up with the (graduated!) students antics.
Maka Albarn panted, looking at the two fallen students below her, before affixing her gaze to the mirror. "H-Hi, Lord Death."
"Oh, hello, Maka." He remembered he was supposed to receive a briefing, and composed himself accordingly. The scythe-meister nodded, her optimistic emerald eyes having become a little more jaded since Lord Death and Spirit waved them all goodbye. "I'm sure you've grown rather weary of the small talk and all, but tell me, how... is it there?" Having not ventured to the Witch Realm in ages, even before his constriction to Death City, he had to wonder what went on behind closed dimensions regarding their views on the DWMA. Still, if they weren't so dodgy about everything, perhaps there wouldn't be Witch hunts, Lord Death thought, keeping his rage inward as always.
"Well..." Maka put her hand to her chin, obviously reflecting on the experience thus far. "Permission to speak frankly?"
"Granted."
"It sucks. Without a doubt, one of the worst experiences of my life. The officials are nice and all, but the population at large hate us. Not that I can really blame them, but the attacks seem to be growing more and more frequent the farther we get in. Killik, Ox, and Kim are all benched right now because of it. Thankfully, we haven't taken any casualties besides our intended targets, but..." Her knuckles whitened, before releasing them in a passive breath. "I just wanna get it over with."
"Maka," Lord Death began. "for someone in your situation, it's perfectly understandable to be angry. In fact, you've displayed immense self-control for someone of your talent. Still, don't ever think that allows you to 'let go' at any moment. Every beating you take, every fight you enter, you must end it non-lethally unless specifically directed otherwise. If not...larger things are at stake here." He shut his eyes on his mask, indulging in a solitary moment.
...Only to come back wearing Death City-brand everything: baseball cap, foam finger, soft drink, and shorts, despite not having legs. "And we're your biggest fans, so don't you ever forget that!"
Maka's eyes narrowed, still millennia behind behind the Death God's shenanigans. "...Got it. Albarn out!" She saluted, ending the call.
For Dart and Julian, the trek through the Amazon basin remained relatively quiet, running into surprisingly few threats besides the occasional large, intimidating bug that buzzed by. Branches scrunched at their feet, fauna constantly obscured whatever laid in front of them, and yet, they had still sunken into a monotonous calm, unthreatened by their general surroundings. Nothing had attacked them, and by the looks of it, it was unlikely anything was going to. Where Dart was leading him, Leone had naught but a clue, but it wasn't urgent, at least not yet.
"Hey, Dart." Julian began, treading two steps behind the meister. "'s taking us so long? Feels like we've been running in circles forever." His legs were already starting to give out, dragging his feet along the dirt path. He gave Julian a curious look, like he wasn't sure he was joking or not.
Dart's mouth hung slightly agape, appearing a little confused before pulling himself together while he walked. "Julian... Y'know our target ain't in the jungle, right? There's a little more 'til we're there."
"What?!" Julian hollered, his aching muscles speaking for him. "How much more then? I ain't gonna last forever here..."
The meister didn't answer, focused on whatever was in front of him as he brushed past another thick layer of gargantuan leaves. He stopped, causing Julian to bump into him before getting a peek himself. "...Actually, I think we're here now."
"Oh." Julian sighed loudly, just relieved.
It was huge, likely matching the DWMA in size. And while the DWMA was constantly bustling with life, this place radiated with the exact opposite. Despite being absolutely massive, it held no signs of habitation, perhaps not even in months judging by the moss and vines running down its surface. Above all, what struck Julian most was that the castle, if one could call it that, looked to be flipped completely upside-down, resembling a spider tossed on its back, with the six 'legs' pointing straight to the heavens. It was housed in a mile-wide crater, like it had just been dropped there out of the blue.
"Hey, Julian." Dart elbowed the blond lightly. "Hey. Hey, Julian." The meister pestered him, trying to grab his attention. "It's kinda funny-lookin'. Almost like a shortcake." He joked, seemingly unfazed by all of this. "Heh, you gotta see it too, don'tcha? From the right angle, it looks just a little like a shortcake, am I right?"
Julian went silent, staring far off into the distance. "Julian. You ain't looking from the right angle. Gotta tilt your head a bit. Hold on, lemme help y—"
"Dart." Julian snapped, facing him with a short-tempered glare. "You said we we're goin' on a mission."
"Yeah," he blinked. "aren't we?"
A fixed smile formed on Julian's face, on the verge of collapsing into mouth-frothing, hair-tearing rage. "Buddy. I came here expecting some lowbrow soul crook, not—not this. So either, we ditch and go do something normal teenagers do, or I'm out." He coolly yanked on the frills of his jacket, immediately strutting away from the scene.
The moment Leone didn't hear footsteps behind him, he stopped, turning to see what was keeping him waiting. "Y'know, Julian, my mama taught me better than to say this, but..." Dart was leaning against a thin tree, wearing a shit-eating grin that just begged Julian to inquire.
And so he did, with a dragging sigh. "What is it, Dart?"
"Naw, naw, it's too cruel. Dunno if you'd be able to handle it. Pride's the biggest thing you can have, right?" The country boy was growing too wry for his own good, slowly-but-surely goading Julian, much to his chagrin. "You ain't...Well, chicken, are you?"
/
They were already scaling the high castle, trying to find an entrance point through an open window. "I will never, ever forgive you for this." The weapon muttered in whip form, knowing full well he was playing right into Dart's simple ploy.
"...You gotta admit, it was a little clever." He snickered, thoroughly amused. Using the vines as leverage, he slowly ascended, the sun beating down on him with further fatigue that threatened to send him plummeting to a messy death should he let go. When Dart finally stumbled upon an open window, he threw himself over, taking a minute to catch his breath while Julian sat beside him, urging him to get up.
"Heeyyy, Dart, we better start moving soon..." His eyes shifted back and forth, paranoid, while his (temporary meister was taking a breather. Small patches of light from the windows flooded into the curved hallway, with any other means of illumination long defunct by the time Dart and Julian arrived. The rancid scent of dried, decayed blood invaded Julian's nostrils, ever-present even among the mass of plants that had infested the castle. He peaked his head outside and took a good sensory indulgence, wondering if he'd ever experience it again after wandering into the ominous place.
"Yeah, no point in sticking' around." He conceded, kicking himself up and onto his feet. His first instinct was to take an immediate left at an open door, deeper into the hollowed castle. "Relax Julian, it's juuust a routine mission. Ain't nothin' different from the usual slog." Dart looked at Julian in a way that was probably meant to reassure, but given the long-deadened atmosphere, he had some reason to be nervous.
Julian threw himself to the corner, completely backed against the wall. "Unh-unh. I ain't going any further than here." The room's complete lack of features froze him, however 'safe' it appeared to Dart. The meister spun around on his heel to face him, staring expectantly.
"C'mon now, do you see anything here that could hurt us?" Dart took a step forward, and suddenly, the floor grumbled lowly before ascending to high-pitched cracks.
"Dart!" Julian squeezed further into the corner, hastily gesturing for him to stop moving. The meister squinted at him, trying to read his expression. "Are you deaf?! Stop moving!" His voice had become a shrill whisper, speaking through his gritting teeth.
"Julian," he glared. "This is serious! Y'all better stop yanking my chain here. Now let's get a move-on..." Turning back 'round, he made way to the door only a few feet away. The cracks became rapid, and Julian could already see the faint incisions in the floor leading to Dart's footsteps. "Julian. For real now." He was paused where he stood, just shy of a few steps from the exit. The blond's eyes bulged, with the knowledge that all but a stiff breath could collapse the floor beneath them.
Dart turned, placing his foot firmly on the ground as he did so.
"No!" Julian shrieked, as the final catalyst for the floor's crumbling took effect, taking down Dart and Julian with it. The two screamed for their lives, a sound that echoed with them as they rapidly descended. With everything blazing past, Julian could make out that the surrounding walls were entirely dirt save for a few hole-doors, leaving wonder as to whether it was intentionally hollowed out. He locked eyes with Dart and nodded, assuming his whip form in midair. In a coordinated effort, Dart quickly seized him, activated the rope, and quickly snapped it to a jutting branch sticking from the earthen wall.
"P-Phew..." The meister took a moment to breathe, staring downwards at the unending abyss that fate could have potentially paired him with. With a quick gulp, he disregarded it, swinging on the branch until he gained enough momentum to do a flip, landing safely inside a nearby hole. There was no divergence on the dirt path immediately ahead; either walk straight forward into the cramped darkness, or jump back down.
"You first." Julian gave Dart a light slap on the back, allowing him to take the lead. With a hint of bitterness, he went ahead, though part of him knew he deserved it for ignoring Julian's warnings beforehand.
As the two ventured further into the rabbit hole, the space seemed to grow increasingly tight, to the point where Dart had to arch his neck just to avoid grazing the dirt ceiling. "You feelin' a little claustrophobic over there, Julian?" He asked.
"Gah!" Julian aggressively swatted at a falling centipede before stomping it to oblivion. "Sorry, you say something?" He asked. The rumble from before started up again, but this time, it felt louder, closer.
"Move!" Dart embraced Julian and dove forward, fuelled by adrenaline alone. An ominous groan echoed into the chamber, letting loose piles upon piles of dirt from the cracks in the ceiling. The two buried their heads in the ground, hiding their faces from the dust and specks flying en masse in all directions. Once the storm settled, Dart took a hesitant stand, wriggling his leg out of a particularly heavy dirt clump and scanning the area. Julian, his face still tucked, couldn't see what had happened, but the audible gulp from Dart told him all he needed to know.
"...What is it?" Dread overcame Julian, having the sinking feeling he already knew what went wrong.
A gap filled the meister's speech. "...You ain't gonna like it."
"Just spit it ou—"
"—We're sealed in." He squeaked out. Julian immediately raised his head, feeding into the morbid curiosity that made his heart race.
His pulse came to a dead stop. Say it ain't so, he thought, eyes dully meeting the brown wall in front of him, barring any light from entering.
Dart watched Julian's face and braced, expecting an (admittedly justified) outburst of catastrophic proportions. But instead, he calmly turned, faced the mounds of earth, and began tracing his finger over it. "Hey, Julian, what are ya..." He peeked over Julian's shoulder, trying to get a better view until the blond's head whipped to meet his.
"I'm writing an epitaph. Y'know, for my tomb." Julian moaned. "I've got a start right here: Here lies Julian Leone, too good for this sinful world. How about that?" It was clear to Dart now that Julian was in full-delirious mode, donning a sagging expression that had given up any hope of escape in seconds. Putting on his best fake smile, he offered his hand to Julian in hopes of getting ahold of him before he went too far off the deep end.
"C'mon now, we aren't completely trapped. There's nowhere else to go but deeper!" Dart looked towards the abyss of the corridor a shred of optimism, certainly a better alternative than waiting to rot. Julian grunted pitifully, pulling himself up from Dart's arm.
"Kill me." He covered his eyes with his right hand, refusing to take so much as a peek in the pitch-blackness.
"Only with courtesy, Julian. Only with courtesy." Dart mumbled wearily, suddenly feeling a great sympathy for his mother for being able to put up with a whiner like himself in his childhood.
Even so, keeping up a happy-go-lucky mask was wearing thinner on Dart by the minute. His mind toyed at the possibility of the dirt corridor being endless—a maddening trick devised to keep them walking until their legs or their sanity gave out, whichever came first. The dirt scrunched beneath his feet, seeping into his shoes just a little more with each step. He hesitated to describe hand-holding Julian as dead weight, but Dart felt certain Julian would become useful later on...probably.
The smallest of glints appeared in Dart's vision, just ahead of him. He broke into a dumb, gap-toothed smile, quickly nudging Julian to nab his attention. "Julian! Julian, y'see that? Light's ahead! We're almost out!" He waited until the weapon dropped his hand from his eyes, taking a shared joy in seeing Julian's expression like a Christmas tree. Leone fell short of words, merely letting out a large puff of air that spoke better than words. "Almost there, y'see...?" Dart's eye twitched, holding Julian's arm uncomfortably tight as the saving light grew closer.
"Hey," Julian began, laughing at himself a little bit. "it almost looks like the light's getting closer to us, kinda." He chuckled. Dart too stifled a quick laugh, but as he considered it, yeah, it did seem as if the light was approaching them as they approached it, albeit at a much more subdued pace. Dart and Julian halted, staring closely to verify the hypothesis. Utter silence, as the small shard of light bobbed up and down in a rhythmic pattern that closely resembled walking. The two shot glances at each other, sweating like mad. Their only other exit prior to jumping in was now blocked; at this point, confrontation was inevitable.
"Don't need to remind me twice!" Julian was eager to abandon his vulnerable, squishy human form in exchange for a cold, metal wand, seized in-between Dart's fingers and ready to fire.
"Show yourself!" Dart shouted, thumb hovering over the trigger. The soft shuffling of the dirt among footsteps became audible, erasing any semblance of doubt he once had to a third person's presence. His heart convulsed and raced, eyes firmly locked onto the light ahead, glimmering menacingly like the lure of an angler fish. Faintly, Dart could make out a pair of human legs making calm strides towards him mere meters away.
The figure stepped in front of him. "FIRE!" Julian screamed. At the last moment, Dart's thumb smashed the trigger, letting loose a compression of his soul wavelength with the force of a shotgun blast. A cry echoed in the darkness, the earlier light disappearing at once as the carrier dropped to the ground. Julian de-transformed, taking a step forward with Dart to examine the body. The victim was dressed in what looked to be priest's garb, robe, cap, and all, complete with a cross necklace. "Oh shit, look..." Julian knelt, holding the cross in hand and drawing emphasis to its center.
"Can't be..." Dart fumbled for words, eyes bulging at the sight of it. Lord Death's signature skull emblem was smelted dead-center on the necklace clear-as-day, the necklace belonging to the person they shot. "...This guy's DWMA!"
Julian blinked, then walked off. "Well, nice knowin' ya. I'll visit in prison when I can." He said casually, leaving the scene of the crime as if he was completely guiltless.
"H-Hey now!" Dart pointed an accusing finger his way. "You told me to shoot him!"
"Yeah, but," he stopped, meeting Dart's eyes equally accusingly. "y-you shot him."
"You're an accomplice! The murder weapon, even!" Dart advanced on Julian, pointing to the smoking corpse beside them.
"Pfft. Like that's gonna be enough to convict me." He said confidently, snorting.
"What're you talkin' about?!"
Julian's head whipped Dart's way, flipping his hair and flashing his most charming gaze. "I'm too pretty for jail, man."
The meister fumed silently for a moment. "And I'm not?!" Insulted, Dart scanned his own physique up and down, looking back at Julian furiously.
"Alright, maybe I was a little harsh. You're okay, not great. You'd really have to doll yourself up if you wanted to get a light sentence." Julian said, almost analytically.
"How much is okay?!" Dart demanded to know.
"About five out of ten on a beauty scale."
"Y'all and I both know it's more than that."
"Okay, maybe a consistent six out of ten." Julian shook his flat palm, narrowing his eyes at his lanky companion. "Seven on good days."
"How many days are good days in the week?"
"About four."
"Four out of seven!" Dart cheered, taking it like a victory. "That means I'm a seven out of ten over fifty percent of the time!"
"How would you rate me?" Julian asked curiously, leaning against the dirt wall.
Dart tilted his head, looking at his weapon partner with a critical eye. "I'd say nothin' short of an eight outta ten."
"Excuse me, if you wouldn't mind." A third voice joined in, coming from the supposed corpse. "I would sincerely appreciate your help, this is a bit of a predicament. I'm assuming you're the 'others' Lord Death sent?" He was surprisingly affable for someone who was just shot at point-blank, to Dart and Julian's shock.
"Golly, sir, we thought you were—" Dart began, swiftly cut off by a hand swinging in front of his lips.
"—P-Pretty banged up there. Not that I'm implyin' we were shooting to kill, not at all." Julian laughed insincerely, looking off to the side with a smile that looked a bit painful to hold. The older teenager at their feet blinked hazily, before his eyebrows raised with clarity and he nodded.
"Oh, so that's what it was." He came to a staggering stand, supported under each shoulder by Dart and Julian. "So from what I understand..." The priest took two glances at the both of them. "You intentionally tried to murder me without even attempting to verify my identity?" The priest halted, letting go of his almost-killers and meeting them with a look of utter contempt. Dart and Julian's figures turned to statues, petrified to the spot with frozen expressions of fear. Their eyes wandered to the guillotine blades below his elbows, so shiny and pristine that their terror-stricken faces were visible in its silver sheen.
"W-We... Hey now, let's..." The meister backed away with his hands up in a submissive gesture, trying his best to diffuse the situation under pressure.
"Look man, we're just tryin' not to get killed down here, y-you woulda done the same...!" Julian's tone harshened with a snarling mouth to match, but his footsteps carried him backward, not forward.
"That's..." The priest's cold blue eyes didn't so much as squint, fixated on the two without pity. He paused, lips stretching outward to show his bared teeth, roughly grinding together in what Dart could only assume was rage in its purest, most homicidal form. "...Such a coincidence!" In a sudden shift from his chilling whisper, he burst out laughing, keeling over and clutching his gut to a punchline that Dart and Julian had difficulty understanding.
Too scared to move closer, yet too curious to run, Dart remained still, curiously regarding the senior before them with his feet rooted to the ground. "H-Heh. I get it." He smiled and nodded, before shooting Julian an aside glance and mouthing 'I don't get it.'. Julian, on the other hand, was preparing to make a break for it, stretching his legs and gesturing for Dart to do the same.
"Wait, I don't think you understand..." He staggered up against the wall, belting out a few more hearty laughs before he could muster another sentence. After many a failed straight faces, the priest wiped a tear from his eye and brought his volume down to an acceptable level. "Truth be told, I had no idea you were allies either! Before you shot me, I had every intention of decapitating you both! I mean wow, who could have possibly guessed?" An exasperated breath came with the last of his chuckling, not easing Dart and Julian's horror in the slightest.
He extended a hand to Dart, oblivious to the blank stare he was receiving. "My name is Justin Law. I've got suspicions we'll be good friends." The meister's movements slowed, unsure of how to act, before taking Law's hand in-hand, shaking it with somewhat less reluctance.
"Dart Dekei, at your service." He reciprocated Justin's smile, before dropping it to elbow Julian and have him introduce himself.
Julian grimaced at Dart, reluctantly turning to seize the amiable palm placed patiently in front of him. "Julian Leone, but to you, it's just Julian." He said rather presumptuously, but fortunately for him, Law didn't seem to care.
"Right then, Dart, Julian, allow me to lead the way." A familiar light emitted from the edge of his semi-transformed arm, bringing a faint light to the corridor, walking towards the direction of the cave-in.
Julian tapped him on the back, shaking his head. "Don't bother. That's the place we came in, and besides, it's blocked off anyways."
"Oh?" Law put a finger to his lips thoughtfully. "This is a problem." He was only slightly perturbed at the prospect of being trapped in a dirt tomb. "Well, only way to solve this." He raised his guillotined left arm, fully intent on leveling the dirt passage with all of them still inside.
"WAIT, WAIT—" Julian and Dart's protests couldn't stop Law, ducking to avoid the swift swipe of his blade. A metallic whistling whipped through the air, fading to silence after many drawn-out seconds. Then, everything came collapsing down. Feeling a minor quake was one thing. Being at the epicenter was an entirely different experience, dirt flooding from all directions, only being able to trust utter silence when one assumed it was over. Dart's hand shot upward to determine how deep he was buried; cold air hit the very tip of his middle finger. Only a couple of feet deep, good. Stuffing his cheeks with stored oxygen, he clawed at the dirt fiercely, coming to a stop only when his arms were batting at thin air. The large open room, now unobscured by convoluted corridors, was surrounded by metallic wall, resembling a beat-up research center judging by numbers and diagrams now chipping away from deterioration, giving the impression that it had been converted to a glorified corn maze crafted from dirt. The previously-blocked exit hole had filed out now, but it was too risky to be considered a go-to exit at the moment.
"Julian? Julian!" His vision shot to the ground beneath, praying to God that fate hadn't made him the lucky one. When he finally saw the weapon's pale hand gone limp above the dirt, Dart dug like mad, only clearing the first layer before yanking him out by the arm in one go. He was unconscious, eyelids shut and body unmoving. Dart looked left and right hesitantly, having never performed CPR in his life before, let alone under such unusual circumstances. He sucked in a breath, looming over Julian. "One-two-THREE, one-two-THREE, one-two-THREE..." Acting in a rhythm, Dart's palms slammed on the weapon's chest repeatedly, making him sputter out more dirt each time. After thirty or so presses, Dart paused, hoping Julian would forgive him for a cracked rib or two. Or three. ...Or four.
"Alright Julian, wake up now..." Attempting to wake him brought no results. Dart tugged at his collar nervously. There was still one step left to CPR. "We're cool? We're cool." His eyes shut softly, opening his mouth as shadow dawned over Julian's face.
Suddenly conscious, Julian sat up, missing Dart's chin by an inch. "Yo, I'm up." He came to a stand while his meister shuffled away in a flush. "Aw, shit, that dirt musta cracked like, four of my ribs."
"Heh. Yeah. ...Dirt." Stifling a guilty cough, he looked the other way in search of a distraction. "Oh, hey, where's Justin?"
"I-I'm over here...! One of you, please help!" Speak of the devil, Law's voice erupted from a hole below, just out of their line of sight.
Immediately, Dart's mind raced between worst-case scenario to worst-case scenario, hurrying over to his location post-haste. "Oh my God, J-Justin, are y'alright?" With a hand cupped over his mouth, he brought himself to look down into the hole. A sigh of relief escaped the meister as he saw Law intact, limbs, head, and all. Still, at the very least, he looked distraught, crawling around and straining his eyes as if looking for something.
"I l-lost my earphones." He sputtered out. "I knew I shouldn't have used Silver Gun in such close quarters. Damn it all to Hell, damn it all to Hell!" Law had appeared to them after getting shot in a serene state, but this was enough to drive him to a breakdown? Aware of Dart's stare, his head whipped upward, meeting the meister's eyes apologetically. "You can go on ahead. I'll catch up with you both, I promise. Just as soon as I find these wretched things..." His eye twitched, and that was Dart's cue to give him space. If something as minor as a pair of headphones kept him anchored to sanity, then Dart had no space to judge.
"Is he dead over there?" Julian tried to sneak a peek several times, blocked by Dart's body whenever he attempted it.
"...Sprained an ankle. We'll meet with him later, let's go!" He grabbed Julian by the elbow, power-walking to a door at the end of the room.
"Alright, alright, easy with the grip..." Julian muttered, still left with a burning curiosity of Law's fate.
Within a blink from exiting the dirt-filled room and entering the new one, the atmosphere changed dramatically. The repugnant scent of death and decay shriveled up Julian's nostrils on the spot, before his other senses could even process his surroundings. A solitary scream escaped Julian's quivering lips, echoing and fading with no response. Human corpses were strewn about the well-lit lab like gift-wrapped presents before the weapon and meister, their souls long confiscated, or, better yet, devoured. After a prolonged pause, the two took the first agonizing steps inside.
"Keep an eye out for an exit." Dart's words were sparse, his face notably paler than usual. Julian nodded in understanding, examining the right side of the room while Dart took to the left. A long table stretched almost from wall-to-wall, displaying the remains of what Julian presumed to be research, with glass shards and bubbly substances cast about haphazardly. What caught his eye the most though, was the presence of leaking blood, leading him to a body of a researcher slumped over with his head resting on the table, probably having died most recently. The researcher, like all the others dead in the room, wore a scruffy labcoat, as well as a crude mask in the shape of a spider's face.
"Hey, what's..." In his dead clutches, the scientist's arms were locked around an electronic tablet of some sort, in rather clean shape unlike the rest of his bloodied self. Green text lit the otherwise black screen, just out of Julian's sight. "Don't haunt me for this." Making great pains not to disturb the body, he meticulously slipped the device from the corpse into his hands. He swiped upward until he could swipe no more, reaching what he presumed to be the first entry on the tablet.
Log 01:
The DWMA came and went in a storm. When Mosquito engaged Baba Yaga castle's mech (still have no idea why we installed that), I got knocked out cold in the thrashing. When I woke up, somehow, the labs and everyone inside, myself included, got lodged underground while the mechas were duking it out. There's six of us total, but thankfully, after careful calculation, there's enough rations to last us about two and a half years. Tensions aren't high, but we should find a way to get out of here soon...
Log 02:
By God, what a miracle! Nobody here could have anticipated a savior so soon! Really, take a guess. Get ready. Alright, got one? It's [REDACTED]! Shocking, I know. All this time, I assumed he was a lazy jackass, but I guess he's got a heart of gold after all. He scaled the dirt walls to get down here, and he's offered to take us up, one-by-one. Not immediately, of course, but soon. He also mentioned about doing him "a favor" in exchange for saving our lives, but it can't be too grueling, can it?
Log 03:
[REDACTED] finally caved tonight. I...I've never seen him cry before. He told us about everything. About how much he missed Arachne, how he wandered around for months, just hoping to find purpose in something. And then, he asked of us the impossible: to revive the heretic witch from the dead. Believe us, if we could somehow bring Arachne back, we'd have done it in a heartbeat. But here's the thing: Asura ate her soul, which pretty much rules out any possibility of bringing Arachne back as herself. But, [REDACTED], in his sobbing state, just threw her corpse to us and begged us to do something. Given the circumstances, we couldn't exactly say no.
Log 04:
All of us are just staring at Arachne's corpse, wondering what to do. It was a spur of the moment decision, and now we can't take it back. Every time [REDACTED] checks up on us, he asks us how we're doing, and we tell him it's coming along well every time, despite having made no progress. We're engineers; we don't know the first thing about biology.
Log 05:
[REDACTED]'s getting pissed, and fast. He hasn't threatened us directly, but every so often, we can hear him...'venting' in his room, smashing probably whatever he can find.. Every time he walks in, he's just more drunk and disgruntled. We've managed to find a couple papers from the biology team in the drawers, but that's the most assistance it seems like we'll get.
Log 06:
We did it. Through constant trial-and-error, we made something to reanimate Arachne. We poured it on the body in front of [REDACTED], and...it worked. She came to a slow stand, looked around, and followed [REDACTED] out of the room. [REDACTED] looked pleased enough, but we knew the thing that we brought back wasn't our leader. Her eyes lacked energy with a dull smile to match, saying absolutely nothing as she sauntered away with him. It's been a month since he came here, and he's taken nobody back. Mosquito wouldn't have allowed this.
Log 07:
Burn. Burn in Hell, [REDACTED]. It was only about seven in the morning when he barged in, covered in blood, shouting and cursing at the top of his lungs. Nobody had to guess what happened the night before with Arachne and [REDACTED]. You made us defile her by bringing her back as a soulless husk, and you weren't prepared for the consequences. He asked which one of us 'botched the job', before butchering one of us right on the spot, and then left to go get drunk on the surface while we rotted. We stood there for a long time, looking at the mess he turned our comrade to. I hate him. Hate. Him.
Log 08:
The plan is underway. Using some glass shards and scalpels, we're gonna gang up on [REDACTED] the moment he shows his face down here again, five-on-one. Believe me, he's approaching; the dirt above is rattling with vibrations. And what [REDACTED] doesn't know? We converted the passage into a maze overnight, and we threw it together so quickly it could collapse any second! For Arachne's honor, [REDACTED], we will kill you.
The screen came to a halt when Julian tried to scroll down for more. He was reluctant to set the device down, looking for any more text he might've missed, but he had read all the words the fallen researcher had to offer to him. Dammit sympathy, why do you have to make me feel things? Julian placed the tablet back into their arms and let the corpse lie down, as if to tell them at least somebody knew of their fate. "Hey, Dart. Let's keep looking. My trigger-finger's itching." Though his tone didn't show it, Julian was absolutely furious, his expression overcome with a murderous calm.
"Huh?" Dart's head peeked over from the opposite table. "I didn't hear what you said, Julian, but boy, are these guys loaded." He casually waved a dollar bill retrieved from a corpse, to Julian's shock and horror.
"Dart, what the Hell! Are you really lootin' corpses?!" He gawked, while Dart looked mildly taken aback like a child caught stealing from the cookie jar. Julian hopped across the table, getting up close and personal with the meister.
"Well, yeah." He said offhandedly. "But they're evil corpses right?"
Julian slowly dragged a palm across his face, exhausted. "Dart, I know back-alley thugs in prison who wouldn't sink that low."
"This guy's got five dollars."
"Give me that!" Julian snatched the bill and tore it up in front of Dart, to his dismay. The sound echoed, then followed up by a low rumble that neither of them recognized.
"...Can it, I'm waking up already..." Somebody growled, barely in earshot of the two. Their flapping jaws shut tight, glancing to a drafty corner of the room where a curtain hung, obscuring a passage neither of them had noticed when they walked in. Whomever that voice belonged to, Leone knew in his soul of souls, it was the perpetrator of the murders.
Without so much as a peep, Julian assumed his whip form, right into Dart's clutches. Whatever vicious foe awaited them beyond, Dart took the first step, creeping towards the curtain with his back to the wall. Kill him, Dart. Make his guts splatter the walls. Julian's thoughts raced with a desire to kill, and yet cowardice in not wanting to be heard in speaking aloud. The whip was bare, keeping the plasmatic rope turned off for the purpose of stealth.
Once Dart reached the curtain, he tossed it aside, wasting no time with half-peeks and stealth entrances. ...Had it actually been needed, anyways. All the curtain had to hide was a bedroom, and the owner of the menacing voice was dozing off in a queen-size bed, his gnarled hands clutching at the covers.
"Quiet now. Don't wanna spook him..." He stalked to the side of the bed, flicking the whip's steam to life. The man's sleep was hardly perturbed, rolling over to shield his face from the light. Blue sparks danced in Dart's dull pupils, hovering over his prey with a look that almost suggested boredom, had it not been for his fingers excitedly reaffirming themselves over Julian's hilt.
"One." He whispered. He took a step back, extending his arm backwards, whip in hand.
"Two." The man's nose wrinkled, just about to rouse from sleep.
"THREE!" Dart's arm snapped forward, wrapping the whip around the man's neck in one resound crack! The man's face flashed from ignorant bliss to bloody murder, choking out unintelligible threats under suffocation while his brown hairs stood on end. He immediately came in swinging, lunging at Dart with a wild punch that looked like it could shatter concrete. The meister sidestepped, letting the drunkard punch a hole in the wall as opposed to his head.
"Come on, y'damn monster." Rather aloof, Dart overlooked the man, who was convulsing with rage at missing his mark.
"Monster...?" Chains on the man's body roared awake, matching his own disgruntled state quite well. He turned around to face Dart, wearing a smirk that didn't mesh with his otherwise furious body language. "Is that what YOU'RE calling ME, you DWMA chickenshit?!" He took a step forward, while Dart's legs were forced to move back. "When it's YOU bastards who killed ARACHNE?!"
"This is the guy, Dart! He's the one who killed those scientists back there!" Julian yelled, getting the meister's mind back on track.
"I'll fuckin' eviscerate ya...chop you up into little fuckin' pieces and munch on your soul for leftovers...!" He rambled on, drawing closer.
"Watch your language!" Dart stomped and shifted his momentum into a blistering kick, only to find it met by a stronger, and sharper kick on his opponent's end. "A-AH!" No Kishin egg before had ever displayed such a combination of raw power and speed, having shredded his right leg badly mere seconds into battle.
"Take your time in dying, damn brat!" He withdrew his leg, then shot it back into Dart's stomach like a high-pressure piston, sending the meister flying back into the lab. His back crashed against the hardwood table, rendering him barely conscious while the walking saw drew closer and closer... The constant, incessant ringing of the rotating chains became deafening, overriding Julian's pleading cries, the man's shouted threats, and eventually, Dart's own thoughts. There was no time to consider things; Dart had to move. The man assumed a crouching position, using the chains beneath his feet as wheels to boost him forward, barrelling to Dart's position.
Dart grunted, rolling on his side before he could be crushed where he sat. "Too slow on the uptake!" A gloved palm seized his face, slamming the back of his head into the table's side. Hot blood spilled down his neck, threatening a loss of consciousness with one, two more hits...
"H-Hey, Dart, watch yourself, dammit!" Julian's voice was strained with panic, probably the only thing keeping Dart from going out cold. The man pinned Dart's arms down, raising his razor foot to the meister's chest.
"I'm movin', I'm movin'!" His right hand fiddled with the wand, firing a shot point-blank at the autonomous weapon's face. He recoiled, giving Dart all the opportunity to kick him away and make a run for it, heading out the nearest exit, to the open dirt room.
"RAAAGH!" A guttural scream ruptured from behind, shortly followed by the violent tearing sounds of a chainsaw going to work. The dirt shifted like sand, becoming rapidly unstable from the chains' vibration. Unlike Dart, the chainsaw had no trouble moving, rolling towards him while the meister fumbled around. With every step upward, the dirt surfed back up to his knees with a vengeance, requiring constant movement to stay above ground.
"M-Mister Law, we could use a little help here!" Dart cried off to the side, hoping he hadn't been swamped up in the tides.
"Just a minute Dart, I'm untangling them..." In the time it took for Dart and Julian to enter the laboratory, look around, get in a fight, then run back to the dirt room, Justin hadn't moved from his position in the small hole, tongue poking out as he meticulously kneaded his fingers through the small wire.
"Oh yeah, take your time man!" A thoroughly fed-up Julian said with a sarcasm Law didn't seem to pick up on.
"LOOK AT ME!" A voice blared in front of Dart, serving as an eternal reminder to always stay on-guard during a fight. Dart ducked an incoming kick, stepping back while the chainsaw pressed further. He lashed with the whip repeatedly while keeping his distance, keeping the chainsaw at bay like a liontamer. Tufts of black smoke and audible singeing from his skin seemed to imply it was doing something, but the chainsaw kept moving forward, showing no signs of weakness as he attempted to hack something off of Dart's body every few seconds. The chainsaw seized the electric rope in his gloves, yanking the meister forward in one fell swoop. There, a vicious headbutt greeted Dart, knocking him back to the ground and leaving him groaning with a throbbing sensation.
This guy's a real freak...! He's completely impervious to pain! If it ain't a killing blow, he'll just walk it off! Dart's breathing became hoarse; Julian's weapon forms were designed around landing weak hits to gradually break the enemy down, effectively useless against the juggernaut that stood frothing in front of them.
"I can't see a damn thing outta this eye! Look what you did!" Only now did Dart notice that the saw's left eye socket was pitch-black, likely blown out earlier by Julian's wand form in their last-ditch effort to escape the saw's hold. Even then, it seemed to piss him off more than anything, despite the loss of such a vital organ.
"D-Dart! How come you've gone quiet all of a sudden?! Tell me you ain't just gonna wing it?!" Julian inquired, hoping to God that his meister hadn't abandoned hope altogether.
"I got somethin'." Backed up against the wall Dekei gulped, staring down his foe. "There's a chance we can pull out of this, or I'm losin' a limb. About fifty-fifty."
"See ya in Hell!" The saw's revved-up leg arched high in the air, coming down like an ax on the chopping block. Dart blinked, and his mind was no more. His consciousness dissipated to instinct, turning off his mental voice to react to the stimuli in front of him.
"Soul Force!" A golden light shined from Dart's heel, reducing the chainsaw's momentum to an absolute zero as their legs clashed again.
"The Hell is..." In a brief display of lucidity, the chainsaw actually began to question what was happening around him, but not for long. "I'm still gonna kill you—!" A second shining kick cut him off, faster than his drunken state could perceive. He staggered off-balance, nearly falling flat onto the dirt before raising his arms to defend against another kick from Dart.
"Yeah! Don't even think about lettin' him get a hit in!" Julian watched in awe as the tables had found themselves suddenly turned; Dart was maintaining an aura of calm about him, taking things seriously, but hardly worried. Kick after kick, the pressurized bursts of golden soul continually dazed the man, locking him into a storm that he couldn't hope to escape.
"Ain't no jail cell meant for animals like you!" Dart fell forward on his palms, using his arms as leverage to whirl himself around, bucking his left leg in the air while the spinning force still carried him. If this connects, it'll snap his neck! The meister sucked in a breath in preparation for the killing blow.
The chainsaw blinked, regaining sense in between the last kick and Dart's windup. "N-No!" By instinct, he jumped back, avoiding his would-be death by the skin of his teeth. The hit grazed him by the stomach, launching him back a fair distance.
"Damn it, how did I goof that?!" At the last moment, victory was ripped away from the meister's clutches, while their target stood miraculously alive, barely scratched by what amounted to a series of shoves.
"Dart," Julian began unsteadily. "I've learned from spending a long time with Cassiel that, sometimes, y'gotta throw away your pride."
The chainsaw was already staggering back up; there wasn't time to tiptoe around things. "Less metaphorical, Julian."
"We gotta run."
"Oh." Dart limbered up, eyes fixating on the exit: the abyss, where they had fallen down here in the first place. Not the most optimal escape route, but it was all they had.
"LIKE HELL!" A clanging mess of engine fuel and metal revved back up again, drowning the underground in noise once more. It was louder than ever, to the point where it hurt without one's ears plugged. There was a noticeable harsh grinding that wasn't apparent before, like the chains were struggling to make ends meet. "Nnnrk..." The man grunted, lacking his usual edge of murderous rage. "GAAAHH!" All at once, blood spurted out in an x-shaped pattern across his body.
As he realized what was happening, Julian snorted. "Look at this dumbass! We can just go home at this point, Dart. He's offin' himself."
Dart squinted, trying to get a better look at their writhing opponent. He opened his mouth, before he saw it too. "Well, would ya look at that!" Upon closer examination, it looked as if one of the soul-infused kicks from earlier had knocked his chains askew, the sharp bits now facing the saw's own body and actively tearing him to shreds. After a decent time spent observing, Dart made a ho-hum noise and nodded affirmatively. "Yep. He's pretty dead." He spun on his heel and walked off, looking for Law while he waited for the chains to do the work for him.
"Like...Hell...!" Still, the chainsaw refused to stay dead. He took a step forward, even as he had turned himself into a walking cutting board. "...If I'm going down, I'm taking this whole place with me!" With surprising speed, the saw rotated 'round and 'round, creating an unapproachable whirlwind around his body that only grew larger with each rotation. Forceful gales were bringing down chunks of the ceiling around them.
"Mister Law!" Dart cried hopelessly. The room was a veritable dirtstorm, all senses crippled in the deafening, blinding tempest. He trudged his way through, keeping an arm up to shield his eyes in search of Justin.
Julian's voice rang constant in Dart's ears, shouting a single command. "We gotta leave while the hole's still open! C'mon!" The meister's head shot around frantically, trying to focus on finding Justin, avoiding the chainsaw, and listening to Julian all at once.
"Shut up! H-He can't be too far!" Dart was dawdling, still stalling in running off. Each hole looked the same, and so spaced out across the room that it would take ages to find Law, and with the ceiling already beginning to fold inward...
"Dart, watch out!" The last thing the meister recalled before unfathomable pain hit was Julian screaming for him to move. Sputtered gasps escaped from Dart, feeling completely numb save for his left leg, which may as well have been stabbed, shot, and set on fire simultaneously, speaking purely in terms of pain. He looked over his shoulder to see a rock the size of a yoga ball having eclipsed a chunk of his left leg.
"Welp, guess this is payback, huh Seth...?" Said Dart dryly, letting the agony run its course while maintaining some semblance of pride. In a moment's notice, Julian had already reverted to his human form, doing the best he could to dry and lug Dart out from his spot.
He'd never seen Julian so concerned for someone else's well-being before. "You can still walk, right?! Dart, you ass, y'need to start moving!" He tried—and failed—to haul the meister by the shoulders, but the small boulder's weight proved too heavy for the scrawny blond. "Shit...! Why the Hell aren't you trying to get out?! Hey, don't tell me your leg's a-actually..." He was dumbfounded into staring, giving the meister all the opportunity needed to push Julian away with a soul-charged punch.
The weapon yelped, clutching his bleeding nose in outrage over the unprovoked attack. Julian was ready to tear him a new one, until he saw his expression, clear as day even in the storm. Dart was donning a smile, knowingly glancing at Julian despite his condition.
"Get outta here, Julian." He was calm. Too damn calm. Behind himself, Julian saw what he meant; behind him, the vastness of the initial hole laid, and now, perhaps due to the dire circumstances, it looked to be only a short climb back up to solid ground. But, leaving the underground would amount to leaving Dart to die a gruesome death. And that Law guy too, I guess.
Julian hesitated, before snarling "You jerk! H-How could I go back to Cassiel and tell her that?! Tell her that her coward weapon left someone else to die?!" They exchanged a long stare, and to Julian's relief, he saw Dart waver, with a definite guilt and reconsidering in his expression. "That's right, it's like something you'd say, Dart..." Julian's lips curved into a desperate smile, reaching out to his meister both physically and emotionally. "'Come on now, we can make it through this, together!' It sounds like you, don't it? Fuckin' humor me here, Dart, say it!" He crawled closer to Dart, hand outstretched.
"W-We can make it through this, together..." Dart repeated weakly, mirroring Julian with a clasping hand waiting to be grabbed.
"I need more energy than that, man! C'mon!" At last, the two seized hands, making a joint effort to get Dart out. The chainsaw's pull was sucking them inward to a cyclone of sharp metal, but the two of them would be damned if they weren't willing to fight against it. "Don't let go, Dart! Don't let go!" He shouted, feeling his fingers loosen. It was just as much a reminder to himself as it was to Dart. The pull was strengthening, and soon, the two were hanging by a thread, threatening to split apart at any moment.
"I'm gonna...!" Dart gasped, and Julian could see his reflection in the meister's glassy, despairing eyes. Julian's strength gave out, letting go, in spite of all his motivational preaching. A leaf caught in a tornado's path, Dart flew almost immediately out of sight. Ducking for cover, Julian laid on his side, traumatized. He swore he saw the look on Dart's face; his skin stricken pale with terror while his jaw hung agape, any shred of optimism swallowed in the face of swift death.
How deep could that hole be, anyway? He contemplated his remaining option. There was no going home after this.
Rapid footsteps in the dirt. Was it just an apparition, Julian wondered? Dart's leg was out of commission, it couldn't be possible. "Law-abiding..." A voice belonging to neither the chainsaw nor Dart called out, grabbing Julian's attention. A blade shimmered bright near the chainsaw's epicenter, contrasting highly against the dulled chains. "Silver Gun!' The blade's shine gave way to a narrow flash of light, shooting out in a quick, concentrated ray at the cyclone.
And just like that, the room seemed to freeze. The chainsaw's gyration ceased. Dust particles fell to the ground quietly. The dirt floor became safe to stand on. Dart was alive; albeit slumped against the wall and bleeding, but still puffing out breaths. "Dart, Julian! Thank you for holding out, but from here, consider the target mine!" Justin announced himself, his earphones unknotted and snug in his ears.
Julian stared in stunned silence. The whole thing reeked of deus-ex-machina but god-damn if he wasn't thrilled about it. "A-About time!" With the chainsaw's attention turned to someone else for a change, Julian shambled across the room to Dart, checking the severity of his wounds.
"Hurk..." The buffoon collapsed, still reeling from the surprise attack. Law gazed on coldly, patiently awaiting a counterattack. Clutching his wound, the saw leapt up, looking surprised for whatever reason. "Y-You!" He pointed at Law. A smile creased his grubby face, despite Justin not sharing the sentiment. "It's been awhile. Was it fate that brought us here, eternal rival?"
Justin cocked an eyebrow. "Come again?"
The saw flinched at his quizzical response. "Wha—? No, you're definitely the guy. C'mon, it was only a couple months back! Our battle between DWMA and Arachnophobia! A one-on-one duel in this very jungle!"
"Hm..." The guillotine rested his chin on his palm, putting obvious effort in trying to remember the foe in front of him. At last, he shook his head. "No. Doesn't ring any bells, I'm afraid."
"What?!" The chainsaw barked, growing agitated. "Loew village! Couldn't have been more than a year ago! There was a golem attack, and Arachne was there...!"
Law nodded. "Ah yes, I remember it vividly. I was assisting Albarn and her black-blooded cohort on a dangerous mission." The chainsaw grinned, finally glad to get some recognition from him. "...Where were you there, exactly? The getaway driver?"
The saw laid a large, gloved hand on his face and let out a dragging groan. "Giriko! Arachnophobia's most feared engineer? Sound familiar at all?!" He revved up, raising his leg and proudly displaying his chained features. Any reaction above a dull flickering of the eyes was lost on Justin, to Giriko's increasing rage.
"Is this supposed to be a comedy routine?" Justin asked flatly, which proved to be the final straw. Giriko growled, throwing himself into close range and kicking blindly. His feet met cold steel, putting Justin on the defensive by forcing his guillotines up. It was wild fury versus indifferent calm, matched in a clanging stalemate, certain to turn the tides in one side's favor over time.
"Saw leg, second gear!" After another failed attempt at lacerating Law, Giriko whizzed past him on his blades with a notable increase in speed, leaving dust clouds in his wake before looping back around to come at Justin again. The priest put up his blades dutifully, still keeping up an unfazed demeanor for Dart and Julian. They clashed again, but it lacked the equality in the struggle before; the infallible Law was losing, forced to lean back against Giriko's crippling offense. "This'll knock some sense into ya!" He followed through with his kick, knocking Justin to the ceiling in one fell swoop.
"Mister Law!" Dart cried, shoving himself upward. His wounded body protested, nagging at him with an undeniable pain, before helplessly sitting down again.
"Have some faith, he's got this...right?" Julian gulped, far less reluctant about being on the sidelines of the fight than his meister.
Justin arose slowly, from his stomach to his knees, until he could work up the strength to stand once more. The last blow had taken the wind out of him, and not just by chance. However reckless, Giriko in his current state hit like a truck and moved like one too. Simple dodging and blocking wouldn't suffice anymore. "Silver Gun!" Justin aimed his bladed forearm at the ceiling directly above and fired, bringing down some collapsed earth to serve as an artificial wall.
"What a joke! Is this supposed to be keeping me from gettin' to you?!" His voice was muffled, but Giriko's fuelled foot stamping into the barrier was thundering.
Justin, now in a bit of a sweat, sighed. "I never thought I'd see the day when I'd use this in combat. But I'm glad I finally get to..."
"Tell Lord Death I said hello once you hit River Styx!" The wall gave way like wet paper against a cannonball, hardly a match against Giriko's second gear. Bloodlust in his eyes, he couldn't wait to tear that pretty blond hair off of Justin's scalp, watch the life fade from his pupils... Neither of which were present behind the wall, replaced by a towering wooden structure that Giriko was flying right into. Wait. His head shot upward, and swiftly feared for his life at the sight of a blade sliding down the structure, straight for his torso.
"Shit!" He spread out his chains to block, barely stopping the guillotine's blade from splitting him silly right then and there. And here I thought he never used his full transformation because it was weak... Giriko spat, feeling his chains ache under the pressure. I...I can't even kick up to gear three at this point! Damn priest, let me move! If my chains get cut, I'm defenseless!
"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven..." Justin mumbled in a zen state, closed off from any distraction while the fully-transformed guillotine did its work.
Who am I kidding...! I can always use the next kid down as my vessel if this body gets too banged up. What was their name again? Reminding himself of his easy mortality, Giriko grinned, and abandoned fear altogether.
Shing! Stainless steel against flesh silenced the underground entirely. Not even a gasp came from Giriko.
"Did he get him?" Dart tried to get a look from his seat at the wall, lifting his head to catch a glimpse.
"Oh, my apologies. It appears I've missed my mark a bit." Law's words were casual, but his expression offered no such pity, staring at the desperate beast coldly. Rather than his midsection, the chopping block had clipped Giriko's right arm, likely as a result of his fidgeting. He'd bleed out, slowly but surely.
The chainsaw's eye, like that of a wounded predator hungering for a final meal, dimmed but remained open, fixating on Justin. "You...idiot..." He mumbled.
"Hm?" Justin was surprised to see was still conscious.
Oh yes, was he more than 'conscious'. With unexpected speed and vigor, Giriko jumped and threw out a kick straight to the priest's unguarded chest. Blood spurted outward while Justin flew back at high velocity, coming to an uneven three-point skid on the ground. "Oho, now you're in deep shit! That arm was dead weight anyways! Doesn't matter what you take—my eye, my limbs, anything! I'll just come back more pissed than last time!" He boasted, in spite of how fast his stump was leaking blood.
Dart decided he'd spent enough time on the sidelines. "Mister Law, I'm comin'!" Rushing headfirst, he nearly sprinted in, had it not been for Julian putting him in a hasty shoulder-lock.
"Dammit Dart, hold on a sec! You ain't in pinnacle fighting condition either, y'know!"
Engaging his partial transformation, Law put his arms up, making no effort to move. He could no longer fully follow Giriko in sight; only in brief afterimages that were quickly closing in on Justin. "I expected more!" He came to a sudden skid, slicing into Justin's shins like twin buzzsaws. He keeled over at Giriko's mercy, giving the saw exactly the reaction he desired.
Law panted. "My resolve is only matched in faith..." Still persisting, Justin lunged with both blades, but Giriko seemed to disappear before they could graze skin. The saw reappeared from behind, knocking the sense out of Justin with a blow to the back of the head. Reduced to a limp, he got back up with agony in his bones, Giriko circling him like a hawk all the while. There was no motivation in his steps, dragging himself from Point A to Point B, 'Point B' being the exit back to the central hole. So much for resolve.
Julian shot up and cursed. "Are you kidding me? Running, really?!" His nose twitched in vehement disgust, watching apparently Law turn tail and ditch as soon as Giriko proved too much.
With Justin's back turned, Giriko launched himself at his wounded prey. "For Arachne!"
The guillotine, thoroughly exhausted, straightened out his back. "I'm not running, I am merely..." Giriko came at him with a flying dropkick. No depth perception. Justin sidestepped, letting the saw breeze right past him, straight into the hole's entrance. "...Biding my time." A raging cry echoed from the abyss, and then faded. "You always were a persistent devil, Giriko..."
After a three-second count, there wasn't any further noise, and Justin deemed it safe to turn back to Dart and Julian. "Praise the lord, for the enemy is vanquished!" He declared jubilantly, a little off-putting in conjunction with the scars and bumps on his face. Still, the students rejoiced, locking arms in a circle with Law.
"Y'did it! ...How badly are ya hurt? Break anything? Need a washcloth?" Dart began doting over his senior, looking for anything too severe. The Death Scythe shrugged it off.
"Hardly enough to keep me from purging evil."
"Ha, I never d-doubted you..." Julian was quick to backpedal on his previous statement; he didn't want to add Justin to the growing list of Death Scythes who regarded him callously.
Once they reached the outside hallway, Julian shielded his eyes from the light. "Ah, my eyes. My fragile, fragile eyes." Afternoon had dimmed to sunset, streaking the sorrowful castle with warmth. "Yeah, I won't forget." Julian committed the knowledge of the researchers' fate to memory, before allowing himself a yawn while overlooking the surrounding jungle.
"Dart, Julian, before I take my leave, may I ask something of you?" Only now did the meister and weapon realize how loud Justin's 'inside voice' was when they weren't inside a crumbling room. They both turned to meet Justin's eager eyes, holding out his near-fossilized cell phone. "Let's trade contacts. You have my word that my texts will be as informative and as educational as possible. And, frankly put, the prospect of friendship with you two seems...amusing."
"Well, ain't you just the most charismatic fella around..." Dart already whipped out his phone, immediately cross-referencing his number with Law's.
"And you, Mister Leone?"
"Can't." Julian's eyes shifted. "Phone's dead."
Justin nodded understandingly. He kicked up, feet dangling over the railing ledge to the long fall below. "With that, I'll be taking my leave. It's been nice, you two."
"Mister Law," Dart cleared his throat, looking a little sheepish. "Justin. After everything that happened here, you're welcome to join us anytime, y'know that?"
"I appreciate the offer." Law's back was to Dart, his silhouette blackened in the sunset. "But really, I'm someone who best works...alone." Without another word, Law let go, making the long fall back to the ground with what the meister could only assume was a solitary smile, content in his solo lifestyle.
A light slap on the back jolted Dart from wandering thought. "Hey. Dream team." Julian said flatly, no further elaboration or explanation required.
Dart met the weapon with a firm handshake. "Dream team."
The Book of Eibon. It is the amalgamation of every idea, every passing thought, and every desire I've ever experienced, all bound within the confines of this book. BREW itself only marks a footnote in its pages. But for its grandeur, the horror in its history grows more and more unbearable to relive with each opening of its cover. Which is why, this will mark the last entry in this accursed book. And yet, my hand remains fixed, unable to bring the match to the page. Am I an old man who still clings to his playthings? It's...It's for the best. My dearest wife is only a remnant of the past now, and I've come to the realization that I will be too, in this rapidly advancing future. Goodbye, steadfast companion.
The door opened. An imposing shadow stood in the doorway, quickly shutting the metal door behind them. "Who...are you?" He put out the match, still sitting down as he stared at the intruder.
"The book. Give me the book." It wasn't quite a threat, but the tone behind the voice was demanding. Fearing for his life, Eibon seized the book in his thin, metallic fingers and offered it to the person in front of him. He saw their hand reach out to grab it.
"W-Wait!" For the first time in over many decades, Eibon made a decision based on his conscience. He snatched the book back, clutching it tight in his arms. "What do you intend to do with this...?" The figure had yet to state their name or purpose, towering over Eibon quietly.
"Well?" Their eyes flickered. "Hurry up."
Eibon nearly leapt out of the chair, backing away with the book in a death grip. "No...No...No, your intentions, they aren't pure! Begone at once!" The figure wasn't deterred, ignoring Eibon entirely and fixating on the book.
"Hey. Don't scream." Within a blink, a fist had already clocked against the side of Eibon's head. He slumped to the floor lifelessly, dropping his prized book at last. Satisfied, the thief grabbed the book delicately, slipping it into their jacket. They stepped out into the light of the DWMA's underground hall, leaning against the wall.
"It's done." Brandt pressed a finger against her left earlobe. "What next?"
"Congratulations. Go home for now, but be prepared to wake early tomorrow." An icy voice only audible to Victoria spoke, far, far away from the DWMA. Brandt withdrew from the scene without a trace, and as far as Death City knew, she was peacefully asleep, thinking of how to better herself the next day.
If only.
AN: Aaand we're back. With the re-introduction of Justin Law, I'm curious as to how you thought I handled him. With three other characters who use a "formal" style of speech (Alice, Cassiel, Cole) I hope I was able to differentiate his personality somewhat. With the brief cameo that the original three meisters got, I hope I was able to capture their personalities in the brief amount of time they were onscreen. As for Eibon's fate, I'll leave that ambiguous.
I also want to talk about Dart wielding Julian's wand form. A relatively minor detail, but I changed the method-of-fire from machine gun to shotgun from Cassiel to Dart to reflect their different souls. I guess it spawned in my mind when I thought, what would happen if Black Star or Maka wielded Liz and Patty? Is it fanwank? Yes, but it's fun fanwank.
And from now on, I'll be weaving in elements present in the SE manga. Just store that little tidbit away in your subconscious. :)