I said that my update schedule would be far quicker in the summer.
That was not a lie.
But this chapter... well. Four complete revisions.
Four.
I won't go into too much detail, and keep you from what everyone's actually here for. But suffice to say, it was a tough one. And then some.
A million thank you's to Zaralann.
Disclaimer - I do not own Bleach or Worm. They belong to Tite Kubo and Wildbow respectively.
We found Bakuda standing atop the tallest building in Brockton Bay. Tattletale and I were on the rooftop of one of the skyscrapers beneath Bakuda's, Tattletale crouched on her haunches, me standing straight and tall.
"That's… odd." My friend mused, cocking her head to the side. I raised an eyebrow in question.
"Fighting in an open space like that gives you the advantage." She said to me. "If I was her, I would have fought in a small, tight space, stopped you from hopping all over the place." She glanced at me warningly. "It's a trap. You might as well just blast her from a distance."
I clicked my tongue in annoyance as I realised something.
"I can't. Bakuda is filming this, correct?" Tattletale nodded slowly. "She's turned this into a matter of public relations. If I kill her, the Protectorate will most likely respond aggressively, as to respond to their own public being displeased with my nature."
Tattletale groaned.
"So you're going to walk into the trap?"
"I'm going to walk into the trap."
"Don't say I didn't warn ya."
"I'll keep it in mind."
I drew Senbonzakura in a flourish of flower petals. I was eager to try out Shinso, but my original blade would be far better at dealing with Bakuda, able to deal with her bombs at a distance and attack her from multiple angles.
I vanished from the rooftop with a quiet hiss of air.
When I alighted upon the bare roof of the Skyscraper, Bakuda was facing away from me, head cocked to the side, a dark grey trench coat upon her shoulders. She looked over her shoulder at me, her gas mask concealing her face.
"I think I hate you the most."
I raised my eyebrow curiously, but let her continue. I'd let her have her minute of fame, let her have her little monologue. And then I'd put her down, like the mad dog she was.
"You're ridiculously, unfathomably, unfairly powerful. First time you show up, you take out an entire team of Villains. Second time, you launch some ridiculously powerful blast off, demolish an entire fucking street. Third time, you take me down. And you didn't work for any of it." She turned around fully and started to walk towards me. I could feel her glare behind her mask. "All of us lot, we scrabble amongst each other like rabid dogs. All fighting, ripping and tearing at each other for something more, a chance at greatness. But you?" She jabbed her finger into my chest, her face ten centimetres from my own. I gazed coldly at her. "You were given that power. Each and every step forwards, I have to work for. But you... you just pull some fancy sword out of your ass, swing it around a bit, and then everyone falls to their knees, praising your very fucking existence!"
She got angrier and angrier as she went on, her words lined with a fury so powerful It very nearly moved me. Nearly.
I felt my lips curl into a slight sneer.
Her very existence disgusted me. This was her justification for stealing so many lives? For slaughtering hundreds? It went against everything I stood for, for a single individual's hardships to mean the suffering of the many. The thought filled me with loathing. I itched to unleash the full brunt of my Reiatsu upon her, to break her body in two. But I couldn't do that now, not with the cameras that Bakuda had facing me, undoubtedly broadcasting this encounter to the world. No, for now, I would have to settle for breaking her in other ways.
I was brought back to what was happening as Bakuda backed off, stepping away from me slowly, her breathing harsh and choppy.
"Why don't we see how you do without those fancy powers?" She raised a black box, topped with a switch. I didn't say anything, but my subtle sneer said more than enough. "This bomb will take away your Powers. And mine. It'll leave us both as normal fucking humans, with nothing that's been given to us letting us win."
Ah.
"And you think that my lack of powers will let you beat me?" I scorned.
She snarled.
"Without a fucking doubt."
Her bomb was... irritating. I was fairly certain that my Powers were not the standard ones found among the Capes of my home. But I didn't want to broadcast that fact to the world, it would simply paint a target on my back, turn many individuals' attention - both savoury and less savoury - to me. So I wouldn't be able to use my Reiatsu-based techniques for this fight.
Not that such a thing would be much of an issue if Bakuda was handicapping herself as well.
Bakuda flicked the switch on the bomb, sending out a bright blue pulse wave. It tickled slightly as it passed over me, but didn't affect my Powers in any way, I could still feel my Reiryoku, as strong as ever.
It was odd, to have confirmation of my peculiarity. I'd always known, somehow, but to have it confirmed made me feel… I wasn't entirely sure.
Bakuda tossed the bomb to the side, then reached into her trenchcoat and tore from it a wakizashi, the short, red-hilted blade plain and dull in comparison to Senbonzakura.
She was going to try and fight me with a sword?
She was far less intelligent than I'd previously fought.
The Mad Bomber started to charge at me, blade held in front of her chest, Wakizashi clutched tightly in her hands. It was a beginner's mistake, a grip too tight meant that her attacks would be clunky and awkward. But despite that, her posture wasn't terrible. Did she actually posses some form of training in swordsmanship?
My eyes moved to the cameras, assessing them, and taking my eyes off Bakuda. Belittling her, dismissing her. Foolish in any other situation, but I wasn't worried about Bakuda's ability to wound me in any manner - I was more interested in toying with her emotions, showing her how hopelessly outmatched she was.
"Eyes on me, bitch," She spat, lunging at me with a thrust.
I danced around the blow and struck the back of her head with the flat of Senbonzakura's blade.
"Slow," I scorned, using my height to look down on her.
She grunted angrily, planted her foot, and started to aggressively slash at my torso in a chain of blows, much quicker than before. I avoided each of the strikes with as much ease as I had the first one, my body swaying and shifting so the wakizashi cut air instead of flesh.
Bakuda planted her foot once more, and this time delayed her strike by a half-second, hoping to catch me off guard. I didn't fall for the ploy, instead moving beneath the slow strike and hooking my foot around her ankle, tripping her up with a spin.
"Predictable," I scoffed, looking down at her once more.
Bakuda kicked upwards with a snarl, lifting her legs off the floor by planting her hands on the floor, aiming to strike my stomach. I sprung away from the kick, gliding backwards about a metre. Bakuda tried to spring upwards, but I darted forwards and intercepted her, flipping Senbonzakura so I held the sword by the blade in both hands - Reiryoku flooding them to prevent the blade from cutting me - and slammed the hilt across her face, sending her sprawling backwards.
"Unbalanced," I sneered, flipping Senbonzakura in my hands so I held it by the hilt once more, then lowering my guard in a slow, measured movement.
The snarl she gave left me no doubt that she'd picked up on the unspoken insult.
I let her rise this time, let her charge at me, growling all the while. And when her blade shot towards me, I let it lock together with my own, let her match her strength against mine. I flicked my wrist, sending her shorter and lighter blade off to the side, then planted my foot in her chest and sent her flying backwards across the rooftop.
"And above all, weak."
Bakuda rose once more, this time slower than before. Whether that was because I'd physically wounded her in some manner, or If was because my taunts had started to affect her mental state, it was unclear. Either way, I was succeeding.
I was breaking her.
Bakuda roared angrily and charged at me once more, blade raised over her head. I sighed and shook my head, the gesture more patronising than rueful, before I strode forwards to meet her, Senbonzakura still low by my side.
When her blade came down, far faster than it had done so before, my blade shot up to meet it. She struck again, and again, and I met each blow with my own sword, the sound of ringing steel filling the air.
"Everything I've mentioned so far is a factor in your pathetic swordsmanship, Bakuda," I said, parrying a rapid thrust as I did so. "But it isn't just your swordsmanship that is disappointing." Senbonzakura cut towards her throat, Bakuda raised her blade to meet it. "I've realised something, throughout this little duel of ours." When our blades clashed once more, I spun Senbonzakura in a circular parry, flinging her sword off the side of the rooftop. "Without your Powers, you are nothing."
Bakuda went quiet for a second. She burst into motion suddenly, grabbing the back of my neck with her left hand and slamming her masked forehead into my own, filling my eyes with tears. Her free hand vanished into the folds of her coat, and from it drew a second Wakizashi. The blade was a blur as it neared my stomach, her other hand preventing me from dodging, my death seemingly inevitable.
"Burn in Hell." She snarled lowly, voice full of raw, unfiltered emotion.
I stepped to the side of the blow calmly, catching her wrist with a grip made of iron. I slammed the pommel of Senbonzakura into her throat and let go of her wrist, watching coldly as she fell backwards, clutching feebly at her throat.
I scoffed and turned wordlessly away from her fallen body, striding over to where she had left the bomb. Admittedly, she had been close to scoring a hit on me. If I didn't often duel with warriors who used Shunpo, then I didn't doubt that she would have killed me then and there. But I was used to unexpected, ridiculously fast attacks, Bakuda's surprise attack, however well executed, paled in comparison.
It was still irritating, the fact that she'd even come close to wounding me. She wasn't entirely useless without her gift, apparently. Not that she would know that. In her eyes, she'd failed to even ruffle Regalia. It had to be utterly crushing to her.
A remarkably satisfying feeling.
I nudged Bakuda's bomb off the edge of the building with a foot, watching as it tumbled down to the ground, all those metres away. There was something fixating about watching it, that unstoppable descent, even when knowing the ending to it.
A crunch of gravel alerted me to Bakuda. I spun quickly, and just barely managed to avoid the jab that she threw at my face, throwing my body to the side and slapping her fist away with the flat of Senbonzakura. My foot passed over the edge of the building, and for one haunting second I felt myself topple backward, but the Reishi came together underneath my foot in time, leaving me with one foot on the building and one foot off.
Bakuda growled and tried to drive her knee into my stomach. I banished Senbonzakura and caught the blow with my good hand, flicking my elbow up and catching her jaw. She stumbled backwards, hand holding her jaw. She'd removed her mask for some reason, and without it I could see the tears that stained her face, the blood that ran from her nose, the hair that clung messily to her forehead. She looked… despondent. As if she was near the edge of defeat, but was clinging onto the few, fragile embers of will that remained, like a drowning man clinging to a lifering.
It was rather shocking, like a douse of cold water.
"You really don't stay down, do you?" I murmured.
Her face looked undeniably, irrevocably human. I couldn't make a parallel between it and the mad bomber I had just broken down at an emotional level. The two just didn't match up. She grit her teeth and threw another desperate punch, wild and sloppy. I deflected it with my palm, but I couldn't bring myself to retaliate. I didn't see the point in striking someone so… fragile.
"I'm not weak." She snarled, her face inches from mine. "I'm not."
She repeated, her voice losing its power, it's fire. She sounded more like she was talking to herself than to me.
I shoved her backwards, watched her topple backwards, collide with the rooftop. Somehow, I knew she wouldn't be getting back up again.
I clenched my fists.
This was it. Right here, right now, I could kill her. Slip my blade between her ribs, leave her to die. It would be just. It would be fair. She had killed hundreds with only a handful of bombs, and her life was a mere trinket in comparison to theirs.
So why didn't it feel right?
Bakuda started to laugh, the dry chortles full of bitterness and dried-up resentment.
"I tried, Mama," she chuckled. "I fucking tried. But I'm not strong enough. I'm not special enough." What? "I just wanted you to love me, Mama. Why couldn't you do that? Just that small, little thing? You meant the world to me, Mama. Why didn't I mean the world to you?"
I frowned, then scoffed at myself. This was it? The extent of my willpower? To be turned on its head by a sad face and a sob story? She had killed hundreds. She would be killed in return.
That's all there was to it.
I summoned Shinso to my hand and started to step forward.
And spun, as I felt a presence behind me.
My eyes widened.
Lung stood beside me, impossibly, the man unfathomably huge in person. He just stood there in human form, arms crossed before his heavy chest. I darted towards him, thrust the blade of Shinso into his exposed chest. His regeneration was powerful, but If I could just…
The air suddenly heated to a ridiculous level.
I flooded my entire body with as much reiatsu as I could, leaving Shinso in his chest and crossing my arms in front of my body. The man erupted into scalding flames, the searing orange energy coalescing around him and bursting outwards in a devastating attack.
I staggered backwards, forearms burnt at what was most likely the second degree. Pain danced over my skin like small spiders, skittering over and under my skin, leaving red-hot trails wherever they went.
Lung took one heavy step forward and slammed his fist into my stomach - or he would have, If I hadn't disappeared with a Shunpo. I reappeared beneath his guard and a newly summoned Benihime traced over his skin, blood spraying from the long cuts. His frame lit up with flames once more, prompting me to vanish. When I appeared, a burst of flame was coming towards me, blackening the gravel of the rooftop. I used a Shunpo to dodge to the side of it, used another to dart by the huge man and cut across his torso once more. I tried to charge up a Nake behind him, but he harried me with another gout of flame, preventing me from producing any powerful attacks.
For a handful of seconds our fight fell into a rhythm, me darting around and across his stationary form, Benihime tearing through his flesh, him retaliating with blasts of fire and the occasional thrown fist. It was a stalemate, he was too strong for me to risk taking a hit and trading blows with him, and I was too fast for him to score a direct hit on.
His onslaught of fire stopped for half a second. I came out of my blur of Shunpo only to find him gone, an empty space where his body had once been. My eyes darted around before catching him above me in the sky, fists raised above his head, clasped together in a hammer shape. I sprung backwards and flooded Benihime with my reiryoku. Lung landed with a ridiculously heavy impact, throwing up bucketloads of gravel, his fist's punching through the rooftop and getting trapped there for half a second.
And just as with Lung's own flurry of attacks, half a second was all I needed.
I whispered the name of the Nake attack as I swung the blade, the iridescent wave of energy tearing through his flesh and carving a chunk out of his side. I grunted in surprise as the man charged forward through the blow, dragging his fists through the roof and underneath me, tossing me into the air as If I weighed nothing. I floated for a second, eyes wide, a small part of my mind whispering that he had baited me.
He grunted.
And spiked me like a fucking volleyball.
The world span around me like a pinwheel, a messy blur of greys and blues that I couldn't make sense of. I roughly felt clip the edge of the rooftop, felt my arm very nearly shatter, felt myself pass over the building and into the chasm below. There was no control, no finesse; just me, flipping head over heels like some sort of robed boomerang. I couldn't even Shunpo out my descent, the technique was movement and not teleportation, and I couldn't achieve it like this.
A mass of grey suddenly overwhelmed my field of vision.
Fuck me.
My arm snapped when I ploughed through the side of the building, even though I had flooded my entire body with Reiryoku. I felt cement and brick burst into billions of tiny pieces as I collided with it, felt my body slam into the floor and bounce back up nearly a foot, felt myself collide with the floor once more and slide across it, bowling over a table and chairs.
Goddamn son of a cocksucking bitch.
I couldn't even cry out in pain; I was winded, there was no air in my lungs, and so my attempted scream of pain came out as a racking wheeze instead. My visibility was poor; the room swam unsteadily and was obscured by a grey and brown cloud of dust. Splinters and chunks of brick littered the floor, and the broken remains of what was once a table covered my body.
My arm had taken the brunt of the impact, and was broken in what I think was several places, the fragmented pieces grinding against each other, pressed beneath the weight of my body and the broken table in a way that was… painful.
I pressed my hand against the floorboards, grit my teeth, and levered myself up slowly, crying out in pain as my voice came back to me, shattered pieces of wood slowly tumbling off my body.
I staggered forwards, trying to hold my left arm steady with my right, my eyes unable to see through the thick smoke I'd left behind when I'd crashed through the wall.
I neared the edge of the wall I'd come through, the dust and smoke clearing slightly, enough for me to see the skyscraper I'd been thrown from. I looked up, hoping to see Lung and learn of his position. But instead, I saw Bakuda plummeting from the sky, body limp.
And all of a sudden, I realised that I needed Bakuda alive.
The thought made my gut churn.
It was because of my broken arm and damaged body. With it, my combat potential was drastically lowered. I couldn't partake in intense movement without difficulty or any form of close combat, nor could I wield my Hado and Bakudo while using one of my blades. It was a terrible situation, especially so considering how obviously dangerous Lung was - enough to make me uncertain that I would be able to beat him, even at full power, let alone with a shattered arm.
Bakuda would be able to provide the necessary supporting fire to keep Lung on the defensive, to pressure him into staying wary. Hopefully, it would allow me the time to build up an attack strong enough to kill him in one hit. There was also the chance that she held some kind of healing device on her body, which would be invaluable to me.
It was infuriating, that Bakuda's life now held value because of my own weakness. The very thought of it made my lip curl in revulsion. That I now desperately needed someone that disgusted me so much. But there was nothing to be done. I was badly injured, and I needed Bakuda if I wanted to win a fight against what was probably the Bay's toughest cape.
So I threw myself from the building, and I moved.
Bakuda was falling quickly. I had a single arm I could use to catch her, and had to be careful to avoid jarring my left arm. I could think of a handful of Bakudo I could use in this situation, but those would take time and concentration, neither of which I had much of right now. No, I'd have to catch her myself.
Bakuda was nearing the ground now, and I wasn't anywhere near close enough to catch her. I pushed my Shunpo more, the muscles in my legs starting to burn from exhaustion.
Bakuda was now twenty metres from the ground.
There wasn't even a seconds time between my Shunpo jumps, I was more a blur of black and white than I was the figure of Regalia.
Ten metres from the ground.
I outstretched my good hand, cringing in pain as my left arm shook, juddering the wrecked bones in it.
Five metres.
I was close enough to see Bakuda's face, eyes wide with surprise, mouth open.
My good hand wrapped around her waist and managed to manoeuvre her body over my shoulder.
One.
I grit my teeth and moved backwards with a Shunpo. I felt muscles in my leg tear at the intense strain, fighting against both my momentum and the push of gravity.
I managed to pull it off, the backwards Shunpo killing my downward momentum and leaving me and Bakuda drifting a couple of metres off the ground, practically floating.
And then we fell.
My arm was jarred as we hit the ground, painful enough to make me flinch and stagger, which, coupled with the weight of Bakuda and my torn legs, brought me to my knees. Bakuda toppled off my shoulder, gasping frantically for breath and staring at me in complete bewilderment.
There was a crowd of people that had gathered around the bottom of the tall skyscraper, and that were now making their way over here, smartphone's held high. A big problem, for obvious reasons.
"I need you to heal me," I commanded hurriedly, suddenly realising I had no idea where Lung was.
"What the hell?" She choked out.
"A Healing Bomb," I spat, Reiatsu starting to pour off my body and saturating the air, both from the immense pain in my arm and with the need to get Bakuda to hurry the fuck up.
Bakuda looked hopelessly overwhelmed, but reached into her waistcoat and grabbed a small, ovular grey object. She compressed the switch in the top of it, surrounding the two of us in a small grey field.
I felt the bones in my broken arm starting to knit together, felt the sinews in my leg and burns on my arms start to mend. But the field flickered out after about 15 seconds, leaving my legs and arms more or less fixed, but my arm still consisting of more broken pieces than whole.
Bakuda slammed the bomb into the ground, then did so again when the field didn't pop back up.
"It's broken." She muttered under her breath, her eyes then flickering back to me, far too many emotions held within them for me to understand what was going through her head.
Not like I would have the time to do so, anyway.
Lung burst into existence twenty metres down the avenue, a faint cloud of ash telling me that Oni Lee was in the area as well. The scaled man rolled his now elongated neck and started to walk his way towards me, hands already heated to a broiling orange. The crowd behind me fell into a terrified quiet.
"Regalia," He rumbled, his voice echoing throughout the silence that seemed to hold the world.
This could very well be the worst case scenario for fighting Lung. I was injured, had a civilian crowd at my back, and he was already well into his transformation. On top of that, Oni Lee was hanging around somewhere, undoubtedly waiting to slip a knife into my ribs.
I stood up anyway, back straight, Benihime coming to my hand in a gout of crimson energy.
"Lung," I greeted calmly.
The Dragon of Kyushu chuckled roughly, and started to charge.
I've been promising the classic Worm Lung fight for a long, long time, and I've finally got around to delivering.
I decided to go the route of making Bakuda somewhat more important than she was in canon, simply because it's not done in many other places. Lisa and Taylor forming a partnership? Done a million times. Taylor having ridiculous powers? Done even more. A Danny arc that's completely pointless? Basically every Worm fic. But Bakuda being a character that actually gets fleshed out? Not particularly common.
Not much else to say, really. Taylor not being able to Shunpo out of the throw is somewhat bullshit, I know, but I don't think it's entirely unfeasible either. Yes, I'm sacrificing world mechanics for plot. Yes, I'm an awful author for doing so. Complain about whatever you want, but do yourself a favour and gloss over that, because I'm well aware of the issue.
Thank you very much for reading. And because I'm curious, I'll ask you all what you think the best and worst points about WGAE are. Feel free to tear into my weak little heart as much as you want.
Now go enjoy your summer.