Chapter 26: Three-to-One
It was the sound of pebbles clattering across the stones of the bridge that first made Parsee realize that she wasn't, in fact, dead.
"Honestly..." A gruff voice spoke up in exasperation. " Didn't I tell you to get out of here already, Parsee...?"
At the sound of that voice, Parsee's head snapped up in shock as pieces of the boulder that had almost crushed her moments ago thudded to earth around her.
Towering over the kneeling Green Eyed Jealousy, the Rumored Unnatural Phenomenon grinned ruefully down at her, one fist still held upraised in the pose she'd used to smash the falling rock.
"YUUGI!"
"You were expecting someone else?"
"N-no, I mean...you're hurt!" Parsee scrambled to her feet and rushing towards her.
And indeed, Yuugi looked as though she'd been through armageddon itself. Her clothing tattered and covered in numerous nicks and scratches, the entire right side of her shirt had been blown apart, with only the bandages underneath serving to preserve her modesty on that side. There were scorch marks everywhere, and the skin of her right arm was tinged red, as if from an intense sunburn. There wasn't an inch of her that was scratched or cut in some way, her normally golden mane covered in dust, and the left side of her face red with drying blood from a forehead wound already healed.
"What, this?" Yuugi shook out her right arm. "Nah, this is just the normal cuts and bruises, ain't nothing too serious here."
"F-for a normal person, yes, but..." Parsee was frantic, her hands fluttering over Yuugi's right arm in a panic. "B-but you're an ONI!"
"And not just that...but you're the toughest oni alive to boot." Suika growled, kicking aside a few more fragments as she stalked towards them. She came to a stop next to them, and looked up at where the Einst Wolf, it's size still fluctuating erratically, had gotten itself slightly stuck in the process of tearing it's way free.
"Yuugi...what the hell happened after I got thrown out?"
Yuugi followed her gaze, and grinned.
"Even I don't quite know..." She replied, a barely masked excitement in her words. " But by Ryuujin above, do I want to find out again!"
Suika's head flicked to the side, a wary look in her eyes.
The expression on Yuugi's face...the almost manic gleam in her eyes, the way she stood, the way Suika could see visible tremors of barely restrained eagerness in her stance...
It was a look that Suika hadn't seen on Yuugi's face in over two hundred years.
The thrill of battle, the hunger for a straight-up brawl that was in the blood of every oni...even in the one or two spars they'd had before, with other Devas, Suika hadn't seen Yuugi like this. It had only been on the final day of their time on the surface, before they had gone underground, that she had seen Yuugi burning up like this. Then, it had been a single, harsh, vicious match, Yuugi venting her tremendous frustration at having to disappear like that, with Suika providing her with an opponent that could survive and strike back against that level of frustration.
And now she was seeing it again.
Not for the first time, Suika found herself forced to re-evaluate her opinion of this enemy.
She gave a low whistle.
"Not only does it have that ripoff size alteration...but this thing's tough enough to make even the rumored Unnatural Phenomenon get serious?" The smaller oni rotated her shoulder, working out the kinks. "...I guess he really deserved that 'oni god' title, huh...?"
The Einst Wolf tore its' arms free, ripping and tearing at the remaining sections trapping it's legs.
"About that...I don't think that power of is anything it can control." Yuugi said contemplatively. "It's too...instinctive, too random."
Suika remembered the moments when it had changed size, in mid action, or in situations where being larger or smaller might have been more advantageous, and the way it hadn't necessarily made the right choice in those situations.
"...I suppose." She muttered. "That WOULD explain why it's so erratic with it's attacks."
"...and why it doesn't just change to a smaller size and slip out of the wall right now." Yuugi added helpfully, before her smile faded, and she looked down in surprise. "Parsee...?"
The Green Eyed Jealousy was shivering.
"Th...that thing..." She shut her eyes tightly. "I know why it's like that..."
Both oni turned, surprised.
"You got into that guy's head?!" Yuugi gaped at her.
"Y-yes, well, sort of..." Parsee cringed at the memory. "When you woke it up fully, it was...it was very intense, even all the way out here..."
"...right, of course, just like when this whole mess first started." Suika frowned. "But to think it had that much psychic force behind it, even at this range..."
She looked up at the Einst Wolf, well on it's way to breaking free of the last bits of rock and stone, claws carving furrows through the cliff wall as it hauled itself free, howling in rage and frustration.
"...Parsee, you're gonna have to fill us in on the move." Yuugi slammed her fists together, a dangerous gleam in her eye. "It doesn't exactly look like tall, dark and handsome up there plans on giving us much time to sit around chatting."
With a snarl and a spray of black blood, the blood red and silver machine brought the tribarreled autocannon on it's left arm around, already spooling up as it lined up the shot.
"MOVE!"
The three youkai scattered, darting in different directions as the first shots blew chunks out of the walls, the damaged shoulder proving a considerable annoyance to the Wolf's aiming. Even as they dodged, though, Yuugi caught a flying shard of rock, thrown up by the wayward shells, and turned, hurling it end over end towards the Einst.
The colossal machine barely had time to let out an alarmed growl before the projectile smashed across it's brow and rocking it backwards in a blur as it's size shifted again, this time decreasing. Pinwheeling backwards, the long, serrated tail whipped out, blue-white fire flaring from the Einst's spine as it righted itself, slamming back into the wall feet-first.
Just in time too, as it found itself almost instantly forced to dodge a long, skewering length of chain, Suika's throw missing and digging into the rocky surface instead. Almost immediately, the chain pulled tight, Suika reeling herself in, and delivering a devastating blow that just barely missed, the Wolf hurling itself flat on it's back in order to evade it.
The cliff wall exploding as the oni hit it, dust and debris erupted as the Einst dug it's claws in, skating down the sheer wall as it flipped back over, a savage, hate filled snarl on it's features, the revolver in it's right arm giving an ominous steel sound as it chambered a round.
Before it could strike, however, the air around it burned a brilliant green.
"...I'm sorry." Parsee gritted her teeth.
The Einst Wolf's shriek vanished amidst a storm of devastating explosions, the cavern lit by strobing green flashes as blast after blast rang out, one after another as the Green Eyed Jealousy brought down a full Lunatic-grade barrage of danmaku on the monstrous machine, at point blank range.
There was silence for a moment, the dust clouds billowing out across the open air as Yuugi flew up to meet the other two.
"Did...did that do it?" Parsee's voice was uncertain.
Yuugi snorted.
"I doubt it."
"Agreed." Suika grumbled, wincing as she rubbed the life back into her arm. "Next time, you go close quarters first, I'll do the throwing..."
"If you insist ~" Yuugi grinned.
"ACK NO WAIT I TAKE IT BACK I STILL CALL DIBS!"
Leaving the smaller oni fuming at how she'd just been tricked into giving up frontline privileges for the next fight, Yuugi turned to Parsee.
"At any rate..."She cocked her head, as if listening to something known only to her. "...I'd say you've got about five minutes to talk now."
The gold-haired oni paused.
"Five minutes at most." She grimaced, already hearing the telltale sounds of creaking, rumbling metal coming to life again.
"Ack! U-um, all right..." Parsee stuttered for a moment, before taking a deep breath.
Girls are explaining...
"...so...do you mean to tell me..." Suika said incredulously, "We've basically been fighting to the death with something that has the physical prowess of a FULLY GROWN ONI, and is running on pure INSTINCT?!"
"More or less..." Parsee winced. "There are shards, here and there, remains of whatever the original personality was that resided in it...but there are no memories to support any of it. Everything to make a personality...but with no glue to hold them all together."
"All it has left to it is a name...and possibly a face." Yuugi frowned, considering that part of the information. "Is there any way to maybe restore it's consciousness?"
Parsee shook her head emphatically.
"It would be impossible to bring back anything." She replied heavily. "It...MIGHT be possible to repair the damage done now, piecing the remaining fragments together to make a sentient mind and personality again, restoring it's sanity...but it would be an almost entirely new one, very loosely based on the old one, if at all."
"Damn..." Yuugi grimaced. "Looks like we really will need old Three-Eyes for this..."
The massive, scything tail of the Einst Wolf came out of nowhere, lashing through their group as the youkai scattered.
"Dammit, he's back up faster than I thought...!" Yuugi swore.
Red lights shining through the haze, the autocannon roared again, Suika being knocked off her feet before she could use her density manipulation.
"Suika!" Parsee turned, readying another danmaku array, before Yuugi's warning shout cut her off.
Something blurred past, cracking the Green Eyed Jealousy across the jaw. Her mind reeling from the blow, two more hits struck her, one slamming into her midsection and the other hitting her leg so hard she lost feeling in it.
Yuugi, charging in desperately, saw the culprits. Familiar green, vinelike tendrils filled the air around Parsee, striking and lashing like snakes, almost too fast to be seen, hammering away at her from every angle, harassing and wounding her too much for the bridge princess to bring up any danmaku to protect herself.
More tendrils lashing out towards her, Yuugi tore at them fiercely, noting with grim satisfaction the black blood dripping from the stumps.
It seemed she'd been right about the nature of these things...They were the same green vines she'd seen knitting together the artificial muscles of the Einst Wolf.
A flash of light, and Parsee vanished, managing to substitute herself with one of her clones, her breathing ragged as she clutched at her midsection. She'd taken a beating, that was for certain, but Yuugi couldn't help feel a faint spark of pride at the other youkai's tenacity.
A momentary distraction which would cost her, as a tendril lashed itself around her ankle in mid-strike.
"Oh, shi-"
Yuugi barely had time to react, before she was pulled up and away, smashing into the wall with enough force to blow out a crater the size of a small building. The air whooshed out of her, and she choked, once more unable to believe the sheer power of their opponent. The tendril pulled on her again, hurling her into another wall.
And another.
And another.
And yet another, the tendrils of the Einst Wolf savagely thrashing her through the entire cavern, as if venting it's frustration for the oni's previous attacks.
"Dammit...!" Yuugi gritted, marvelling as she felt herself spit up blood. "...I like a...good fight and all...but this...is starting...to really...HURT!"
At the last second, she flipped around, seizing the tendril holding her and severed it in a single, savage snap of her jaws. Freed at last, she cursed, realizing she'd missed her timing for the landing, and braced for another hard impact-
Only to feel a significantly softer body arrest her fall, accompanied by an irritated grunt as Suika once more cursed whatever deity had equipped her friend with such significantly larger 'tracts of land'.
"SON OF A BITCH YOU ARE THE HEAVIEST DAMN THING EVER."
"Urk..." Yuugi grimaced as she came to a stop, before grinning at her fellow oni. "Thanks for the save, pancake."
"...I should have just let you hit the damn wall." Suika grumbled, dusting herself off.
There was a yell of pain, and another crash, Parsee joining the other two courtesy of another lashing tendril.
"Parsee, you okay over there?!"
The Green Eyed Jealousy was no oni...but she was still a feared resident of the underground nonetheless, for good reason.
"...having my beloved and cute and sexy Yuugi wear such an expression of delight, only I should be the one to make her that happy, you creepy, strange, sad, monster thing! I'm so jealous that you're such a stranger and yet you can make her so excited and-"
"...I'm going to take that as a yes." Yuugi said eventually, realizing that perhaps Parsee had exerted herself a bit too much and was now in one of her fits of insane jealousy, therefore rendering her entirely incoherent.
The world burned red, the three youkai looking up as glowing crimson lights pierced the smoke, the lights of the Einst Wolf blazing anew, towering over them all by a height far greater than any of it's previous forms. Beneath the hate-filled, maddened red eyes, the chest plates of the Einst cracked apart, creaking open like the jaws of a primeval monstrosity.
The smoke burning away before the spiraling charge of the massive cannon muzzle that emerged from the space within that chest, the Rumored Unnatural Phenomenon gave a savage smile, the air around her twisting and warping as she reached deep into her soul for the power that she now knew was a gift from the very enemy now looming before her.
"All right then...three eyes or not, if you're going this far out of line, I suppose I might as well try pounding some sense back into that metal skull of yours...BEOWULF!"
A/N: And so the band is back together again! Now, armed with Parsee's insight into the workings of the former Beowulf, how will things play out now?
Hint: It will probably involve punching, lots of danmaku, and a large amount of badass.
Still recovering from the cold, though that's mostly dealt with. In the meantime, off to the wonderful world of freshly graduated university students!
I.e UNEMPLOYMENT.
''orz
Will be rather sporadic in terms of activity as a result, working on job letters and so forth, but with luck, my brain will get back in gear and keep the chapters coming. ^^
See you next time!