Chapter 28: Cue the Boss Theme
"Too Slow, I'm afraid." The soldier heard the voice, and began to reverse his turn, but Shishi was already beginning his slash. Three quick strokes later, and one more soldier joined the pile of his fellows downed or dead. Either one tended to be permanent; demons fight for keeps after all.
"Something is wrong here." Touya shook his head slightly, as if trying to clear it from some insistent voice. Gently, he reached out and touched the chest of a charging soldier, and the man turned absolutely white, his breathing coming out in a cloud of steam as he fell to the floor, teeth chattering uncontrollably, "If Matthews really is trying to keep us away from Yusuke and the others, what's the point of this cannon fodder?"
"It's a classic tactic." Suzuka had drifted into the area even as Touya was talking. His hand snapped forward, and a pair of metal cylinders emerged from his finger tips and latched onto a pair of featureless soldiers. Both soldiers dropped their guns as tendrils of electricity played over their bodies, dropping them to the ground where they occasionally twitched, "It's called Divide and Conquer. As weak as these humans are, they provide enough of an obstacle to prevent us from easily coming to Urameshi's aid, should he require it."
"Some blokes just don't have any sense of what's right anymore...Throwing away his men just to slow us down." Chu sighed, throwing back his head and downing half a bottle of some nameless brown liquid from a thick container. Heedless of the bullets that flashed all around him, he wiped the drink off his mouth and heaved the bottle toward the knot of soldiers beginning to fire organized, if inaccurate, volleys toward the semi-group of demons. The bottle broke on impact, spilling the contents over the ground.
The explosion ripped apart the asphalt, and sent a full squad of soldiers flying through the air until they skidded on the blackened cement. None of them looked inclined to move, or indeed able to do so.
"What on earth do you drink?" Touya demanded, looking with some trepidation at the smoking crater. Chu shrugged for a moment, and was about to respond when the air cracked sharply overhead. A shining blue line passed through the air where Chu had been standing, and knocked a car-sized hole directly into the asphalt. The demons jumped visibly, and jerked their heads where the shot had come from, but the rooftops in that direction were empty.
"That one could be dangerous, the sniper I believe." Suzuka kept moving, keeping his gaze tracking over the building rooftops as he did so.
"I'll take care of him." Shishi promised over his shoulder, blurring as he rushed off to the north, "Take care of the playthings while I'm gone."
"As ever." Touya nodded, turning back to the neglected melee, icy wind gathering around him,
"Hurry Back."
Matthews twisted to the left around the snapping rose-whip, ducked under the katana sword, reached out with one hand to knock away the Storm of Torment and lashed out with the other, connecting solidly with the side of Yusuke's head and sending the youth skidding along the metal ground into the wall. A quick back flip put him out of the range of the remaining fighters, and allowed both sides to catch their breath.
"Nice Right..." Yusuke muttered, pulling himself to his feet for at least the third time. Against various walls and tables, three Suzakus, Zandock, and Casper were all struggling to their feet as well, "We could have used you on our school boxing team."
"Still making jokes? I must say I'm impressed." Matthews bobbed on his feet, his face sweaty but otherwise untouched, "Your teamwork is better then I would have been inclined to give it credit before. If you work on it a little, you might actually hit me."
"Let me...help.." Amakaze used the wall to hold himself up, the other busy clutching at his stomach, "We can..beat him..."
"You've got a couple of broken ribs, Ama." Zandock wiped blood of the side his lip, glancing at his brother, "You stay where you are, or I will knock you out."
"You can try again if you'd like, as, even without Ama, there are twelve of you." His glance shifted to the seven Suzakus standing close together in one corner, "Well, six minds and twelve bodies. Still, one of you ought to be able to touch me."
"We'll do more then just touch you..." Hiei rolled his shoulders casually, cracking his neck, and abruptly rushed the man with the expensive suit. Even without the slightest hint of warning, Matthews had the time to raise his arm to block the sword stroke. Tiny fragments of shining metal shown briefly in the florescent lighting of the research center. Hiei, unperturbed, flinched only slightly as the hilt of his sword exploded with green-fire focused into the rough image of a blade. He reversed his momentum and swung the now blazing sword the other way, nearly catching Matthew's across the stomach as the other barely evaded.
"I know all about your little Sword of the Darkness Flame, Hiei, we were at the tournament remember?" Even as he spoke, his hands flashed out to push aside another rose-whip strike toward a pair of Suzaku's, forcing them to shy off and allowing him to spin on his heel and connecting with Hiei using a kick that sent the short Yokai spinning of into another wall, "I know about all your moves!"
"Then you'll know we tend to kill people when they piss us off!" Yusuke's voice reverberated off the wall just slightly before he himself did, his headlong rush blocked with a quick throw to the left by Matthews. The impeccably dressed soldier was once again weaving back and forth, his body blurring with an unimaginable speed as he blunted the attack of so many individuals all at once. Yusuke picked himself up, preparing to launch himself into the fray when he realized something.
Matthews was falling behind, in fact, he was losing a few precious seconds with every block that he managed. Soon, one of the hits would get in, if they could just keep it up. If they COULD keep up. Yusuke's muscles bunched as he pushed himself forward.
They might not be able to keep it up, but Yusuke wasn't going to be the first one to quit fighting!
Rinku's Yo-Yo snaked around the man's leg, pulling taut around the limb like a tightly stretched wire. The kid-like Yokai pulled back sharply, and the constricting wire flipped the man onto his backside, along with the other nine soldiers Rinku had entangled. Quickly, he thrust out his hands and ten Yo-Yo plowed into ten rifles with shattering force,
"Sheesh, it's like they want to lose or something.." The boy muttered, bouncing on the tops of his heels and effortlessly flipping out of the way of the return fire, "I've had harder workouts sleeping..."
"These ain't the ones we be needing to worry about, now Lad." Jin could speak fairly good Japanese until he got excited, as his oddly developed accent got in the way. The wind-controlling demon flew in low, bringing himself to a halt near where Rinku and Touya were carving their way through the soldier, Jim himself hovering only a foot above the ground, "The thing you'll need to be watching in when we finally get in to the big guy, I can feel em inside, they're all like 'woosh and wee' and he's still dodgin' them without much trying, and-."
"Look Out, Jin!"
It all happened so quickly, Rinku was forced to reconstruct the event from his memory. Jin was still talking as Touya glanced over his shoulder and froze, his face going from impassive to horrified in mere moments. The blue haired demon had shouted a warning, moving immediately to Jin with his arms outstretched, pushing the floating Yokai out of the path of danger and placing himself squarely into it.
The bullet left the barrel of the rifle already full of spirit energy. It burned blue as it screamed through the air; crossing the distance quicker then any bullet ought to. It streaked right to the spot where Jin had been, impacted and shattered Touya's hastily constructed shield, and slammed into the demon's chest.
Touya flinched only momentarily, and glanced down at himself. His pale skin turned even paler as bright red stained his clothes, pouring out from the wound on his chest and the exit wound on his bag. Quickly, he found his knees buckling, and his own weight drive him to the ground, but he felt no impact in the fog that had suddenly come over his mind. The world jerked in an out of focus, as if it were film being constantly sped up or slowed down. With a blur of motion, Jin appeared at his side, unusually clear even in the blurriness.
"Touya? Touya!" The red-haired demon was slapping the others face lightly with one hand until the others eyes opened fully again, "Don't you go leaving again on me, that wouldn't be right...we stick together you and I and we always have, right? It just wouldn't be right..I mean.." Tears were forming in his eyes as he put his hand over the pulsing wound, trying without success to slow the tide, "...Please...Touya...don't.."
"Shh..." The sound came from Touya with difficulty as he slowly raised a hand over his lover's lip. His face tightened with concentration and he struggled to speak, "I've...no...regrets.." For a brief moment, his eyes opened wider as the air escaped his lungs with a wordless exhalation. His hand drop to his side, and his head lower back onto the gravel after. Frost gathered over his pale skin, a layer of ice spreading over his body until he was left glistening in the moonlight.
"Touya....Touya...!" Jin bent over the Yokai, hugging his unresponsive and frozen body to himself, "No..please...Touya...Don't..." Gunfire sent sparks off the gravel, and buzzed spitefully through the air as the fight continued all around them, but it was all a million miles and a few lifetimes away. Dimly, Jin could feel Chu and Rinku keep an eye on him as they fought, prepared to interfere if the sniper fired again. A part of Jin was grateful, while another part wished the sniper would shoot again, so that he could go where he really belonged.
Slowly, almost so slowly that he didn't notice it, the sorrow began to disappear. In its place emerged a rage, a rage that burned within him like a living fire. It wanted, no- Demanded, the blood of the ones who had allowed this to happen. Without consciously realizing it, he found himself on his feet, his muscles bunched as he stared at what remained of the soldier. To a man, they flinched away from the darkness they saw there. Perhaps Matthews control was slackening, or perhaps he simply couldn't repress the instinctive response to the beast they saw in Jin's eyes. But Matthews had enough control left to keep them from running. Jin didn't want them to run. Wind began to swirl around him, his feet leaving the ground with unbearable slowness as he watched them with predatory eyes.
With a scream of rage and betrayal, he charged.
Matthews' left hand snapping out, catching Kurama in the stomach even as the Kitsune tried to throw himself back out of the way, but the soldier did not have any time to see the results of his hit. His jerked his head back, letting Caspar's staff whistle by his ear, deftly sidestepped Hiei's Katana, and managed to get another snap-kick off at the short demon as Suzaku stepped in with a barrage of punches.
"There's not enough of you to wear me down!" Matthews was laughing now, grabbing Suzaku's arm and flinging the humanized Saint Beast into two of his carbon copies, sending all three onto the floor, "You can just keep getting up if you'd like, you're never going to be able to-."
"Hey Matthews! Shut your Mouth!" Amakaze's voice cut through the din, and Matthews abruptly threw himself backward, landing off balance as the former spirit detective's spirit gun blazed through the space where he had been. His hands cart wheeled a moment as he regained his poise from the unexpected attack, and Yusuke charged in for his one opportunity. Matthews almost negligently pulled his arm forward to meet the attack, and jerked abruptly as his found his arms restrained, with Kurama on his left and Zandock on his right. It took only a moment and a minor application of strength to break those holds, but it was a moment that Matthews did not have.
Genkai's Spirit Wave was as flexible a technique as it was powerful. In the hands of a skilled warrior, it could be finessed in a weapon of terrifying precision, so much so that it could even be used as an extraordinarily precise healing technique. Genkai's mastery of the spirit energies involved elevated it to a technique of amazing reputation among both demons and other spiritual denizens.
Yusuke didn't know a lot about that, nor could he truly bring out the full potential of the Wave. But he could still hit things really really hard with it. The air rushed out of Matthews as the punch lifted the other off his feet, folding himself of the spirit detective's fist. Spirit energy blazed around the two as their auras fought it out on the spiritual plane. Yusuke's familiar grin sprang to life on his face as the last of the Spirit Wave pummeled his tormentor and, still holding the man aloft with his right hand, he gathered more energy into his left.
"Now try my Shotgun!" Yusuke's fist exploded with light at point blank range, each of the tiny shells of spirit energy traveling only inches before slamming into Matthews' chest. The force of the detonation sent Matthews flying backward, trailing smoke as he skidded along the flooring and came to an abrupt stop against the wall with a dull thud.
Yusuke panted with exertion, the rest of the group slowly rising to their feet, some a bit woozily, as they took a moment to recover. Several were nursing light wounds as they stood, watching as Matthews came to a stop against a, now indented, wall.
"I...I hit him."
"Yes, Yes you did." Matthews shook his head for a moment, as though trying to his ringing ears. Slowly, his body rose off the ground, rising with chilling slowness until he was once against standing straight. Briefly, he cracked his neck and spat to the side, a thin trickle of blood sliding down the wall as he wiped at a split lip, "I let you have your fun. Now we play things my way."
There was a flash of moment, a suggestion of a blue for a brief movement, and Yusuke suddenly found himself nose-to-nose with the homicidal soldier. Before he could react at all, Matthews reached out and, almost gently, grabbed Yusuke's left arm, raised it up, and bent it ninety degrees at the forearm with an audible snap of broken bone.
Yusuke screamed as Matthews let him go, falling to his knees and holding onto his broken arm with his other one. Matthews allowed himself a tight smile as he began to move again, weaving effortlessly through the crowd of slow moving fighters before they could even begin to react. Deftly, he plucked what remained of Hiei's sword, hardly more then a hilt and a few spare inches of sharpened steel, reversed it, and brought it down against the short Yokai's gut. Hiei gasped for a moment, his hands grasping at his stomach as the unexpected pain washed over him. Blood ran down the hilt and over his fingers as he sank to his knees.
"Oh I do like this part." Matthews chuckles softly to himself, lashing out with a kick that sent Hiei bouncing off the ground into a wall, "Now you finally realize how weak and powerless you are, and-."
"You Bastard!" Kurama's feet flexed as he threw himself into the air, calling his energy around him. His hair lengthened abruptly, and faded to grey as his eyes began to sparkle with a predatory gaze. Within a few moments Kurama had completed the transformation into his legendary true form: Yoko. A rose exploded in his hands, its long vine extending and screaming toward Matthews, demanding blood. The thorns of the vine glistened coldly as it extended, blurring through the air like a missile.
And Matthews caught it.
For a moment, the two being just stared at each other, the vine still thrashing madly in the soldiers hands even as he held firm. When Matthews spoke his voice was still calm, or even amused.
"You forget, dear boy, that you've been in my machine." He said slowly, his eyes glowing unnaturally in the dim light of smashed fluorescents, "I can do what you do, but I'm infinitely stronger!" The vine twitched in Matthews' hand and turned the deep black of charred earth before coiling, wrapping around Yoko's body and yanking him down to the ground.
Yoko struggled, growling as he pulled against the bonds of his own rose that now held him captive. Matthews shook his head, like a kindly teacher with a particularly slow student, and studied the portion of the vine still in his hand. With an audible groan, the inch long thorn sprang to nearly a full six inches of unbelievable sharp plant. Yoko's yellow eyes met Matthews' glowing blue orbs and, with a flash of fear, realized what the man's intent was.
Yoko screamed as every thorn across the whip extending, biting deeply into his flesh everywhere he was bound. Yoko's scream blended with Matthews laughter as the second ticked by, until they both ran out of air. Yoko thrashed on the ground briefly as Matthews wiped a tear from his eye, still chuckling.
"Well, your friends outside are doing well. I'd better put a stop that..." Matthews said breathlessly, and snapped his fingers. Green light radiated out from the snap like ripples on a pond, passing over the fighters in the room without effect and flowing out the room, "Thanks to Blaze, That should keep them busy."
"Who's next?"
The tornado fist impacted solidly against the man's midsection, and the swirling wind basically blew the man apart. Red mist gathered into the swirling stream and scattered in all direction as what was left of the man folded onto the cement and lay still. Jin panted, wiping blood out of his eyes as he stood. That was the last soldier, and his blood was splattered with the remains of his vengeance.
"Jin..." The soft voice made him jump, and he jerked around, his hands coming around as he sought for another target, another thing to kill. Chu, the owner of the voice, raised a hand to caution him, "I know you're hopping mad, but this ain't the way to fix it, you know that."
"Shut up, Biggie! You've no idea what the way is!" Jin snapped at him, his eyes searching the piles of broken or torn bodies, "Where've the rest of em got off to, I'm not letting 'em get away from me now."
"You've killed them all, Jin, none of the poor blighters are left.."
"No! There's got to be more!" Jin growled, his eyes still searching the mounds, "Maybe one of em is just pretending, I can just-."
"Jin! Cut it out!" Chu grabbed the other demon by the shoulders, shaking him for a moment. Jin was about to snap off another angry comment, when Rinku's voice cut into the conversation.
"What the hell's that?" Both demons turned to look as a green wave expanding from the main building on the base. It washed over the field, turning everything green momentarily before fading. As it reached the gates, it became wider and more diffuse, eventually fading entirely. Jin blinked as he turned, glancing over at Chu, Rinku, and Suzuka as the later rejoined them.
"Wasn't that spirit energy?"
"Felt like it, right enough." Chu mumbled, scratching his chin, "Don't know what it was supposed to do though.."
"I don't feel any different." Jin murmured, "How odd that-." The red-haired Yokai flinched as the blood on his face separated, lifting off his skin and floating for a moment in mid-air, "What the devil?"
The blood separated from Jin in a rush, rising in the air and abruptly arcing down the corpse on the ground. The corpse that was beginning to twitch little bits of skin and bone reforming back in their proper place.
They're pulling themselves back together!"
The four Yokai stood silently as the entire army began to rise again...
The sky dimmed and brightened with the other flicker of non-motion as God concentrated and willed himself to be elsewhere. He quickly gathered a new grip on his rifle as his body materialized on the rooftop of another building and crouched down beside the edge of the flooring. These demons had been lucky enough to consistently manage to block a great deal of his shots, though he had managed to take down one. God loved rooftops, and because of this he took great care to stay unpredictable as he bounced from position to position.
He eased the rifle into position, flipping the cap on the scope open at the last moment to avoid reflecting light and lay still as he focused on his targets. His blood quickened within him as he realized he had stumbled across the perfect shot. All four were gathered closely together, facing the opposite direction, and, best of all, standing still, letting him pick and choose. After a moment's thought, he settled his cross-hair over the red-haired one, who had proven to be the most dangerous, and certainly the most likely to hunt him down.
"I got you now, friend, I got you..." He whispered to himself, tightening his finger across the trigger and preparing for the moment, "No time for prayer now, I-." God's voice cut off as he felt something cold and sharp pressed into his back gently.
"Drop the gun." Shishi Wakamaru was half-kneeling, one hand grasping tightly to his sword, the other hand flat against the bottom of the hilt, ready to drive the blade forward at a moment's notice, "You've lost." God glances over his shoulder, his steady arms holding the gun immobile as he searched the demon's eyes for signs that he was bluffing. He was not.
"How did you know where I'd be?" He asked, his voice almost plaintive, but he did not drop the weapon, "I was jumping randomly."
"No, actually, you were trying to jump randomly. What you did was avoid repeating yourself, which left you fewer and fewer areas to jump to each time." Shishi's voice was almost conversational, but the sword jabbed into God's back again, "Now drop the gun."
"Sorry. I'm a soldier."
Jin felt the bullet impact against him, its spirit energy burning through his body like a searing iron pressed against the wound. The bullet impacted just under his right shoulder and knocked him forward, dumping him into the ground. He could dimly here the shock and outraged voices around him, but he not longer cared to listen. He stretched his hands forward, grasped onto Touya's frozen fingers, and lay still. Before he lost consciousness, all he felt was cold.
God felt the sword push into him, its spirit energy burning through him like a searing iron pressed against the wound. The blade pushed in just under his right shoulder, and pushed him forward, dumping him out of the edge of the roof. He could hear the wind whistling around his ears as he spun slowly in the air, but he did not care to listen. His hand stretched up to the night sky as he fell, as if to pluck the stars from the heavens. Before he lost consciousness, all he felt was cold.
Shishi heard the crash, and leaned over the edge of the building looking down at the rear of the building facing the Base. A rifle, with a hand loosely clutched around the grip, still smoked from the dumpster where it emerged from. A thin stream of blue-ish energy rose slowly from the dumpster and faded into the air. Shishi gravely wiped the blood of his sword, and sheathed the weapon quickly.
"Good Riddance."
Suzaku's last swing was disorientated, and went no where near the direction of Matthews. The soldier effortless stepped in, and folded the former Saint Beast of his arm with a devastating stomach punch that the sent the other flying onto the ground. The demon landed against another defeated fighter, one that wore his face. None of the Suzakus looked as though they wished to continue the fight.
"Well, that was fun." Matthews carefully readjusted his hair, which was beginning to stand out after the jolts of electricity, "Did I miss anyone?" His gaze swept the room from left to right, taking in the Suzaku pile, the huddled, angry form of Yusuke, the spot where Hiei was still struggling to rise, having pulled the sword from his belly with difficulty, the grounded Yoko still bound with his own plants, and the two fallen former spirit detective, "Anyone?"
"M-Matthews." Amakaze was leaning against the wall, supporting himself with one hand as his other still clutched at his ribs. Matthews noticed the sound and turned, smiling broadly as if someone had informed him that he had won the lottery.
"Ah, Ama! I might have known you would not have given up yet." Matthews strode to the youth with a bright smile, "Though I wouldn't envy your case. Those bottom ribs seem to be broken."
"A S-spirit detective...F-fulfills his duties..." Amakaze managed, clearly having some difficulty drawing air as he took a step forward, his hand still against the wall, "I'll S-stop you..."
"No, no you won't actually." Matthews sighed, casually grabbing the Hakudou brother by the back of the shirt and heaving him across the room with the sound of tearing cloth. Amakaze's bare back hit the metal and jolted his ribs, drawing a scream of pain. Matthews walked after him and paused, noticing a deep scar running over the spirit detectives chest from right hip to left shoulder, "Oh, now what's this? Who gave you that scar?"
"G-Go..to H-hell."
"That wasn't very nice." Matthews sighed again, shaking his head like a disappoint parent as he pulled Amakaze back onto his feet, grabbed his arm, and grimly twisted it over his back,
"Ah! Ah! Shinobu Sensui!"
"There, that wasn't so hard was it?" Matthews release the other and Amakaze dropped to the ground as though he were boneless. Grimly, the soldier turned back to the current Spirit Detective, Yusuke Urameshi, "Now then, Yusuke, is that what you want to be? Scarred by near-misses and risky victories, til at least you come up against someone who simply kills you, probably before you even hit thirty? That's what the life of a Spirit Detective is, you know. Why not join me instead, and live as a king?"
"I think my friend there summed it up.." Yusuke's voice was steady as he cradled his broken arm, "Go to hell, Matthews."
"Yusuke, Yusuke, Yusuke.." Matthews sighed, putting a hand over his eyes, "You and Blaze were so much alike. So many baseless convictions of right and wrong that you couldn't see the opportunity before you. And do you know where Vincent is? I killed him, much like I'm going to kill anyone who doesn't join me, and I stole his powers so tell me, what was the point of his heroics?"
"Y-You..Stole Blaze's powers?" Amakaze was back on his feet, and Matthews shot him a brief irritated glance.
"Yes, yes, I did. Not get back on the ground, you're not extended this offer."
"T-That's not P-possible.." Amakaze's breath was becoming ragged quickly, "T-The human body C-can't hold t-that much energy and S-still have y-yours too."
"Very good, class!" Matthews muttered sarcastically, "You're almost there. The human body can't sustain the energy I'm using so, therefore..."
"You're a demon." It was Yusuke who spoke, his voice echoing around the empty chamber and the humming machinery. Matthews wheeled about, smiling broadly,
"Very good, Yusuke! Yes, I am a demon." He said simply, "And I now have access to nearly unlimited human energy, and a host of demonic techniques to use them on. I'm faster, stronger, and more resilient then any demon on this said of the Barrier, and I'll be literally unstoppable. Governments will crumble at my presence, and I'll become stronger and stronger as time goes by, until the world, at last, bows to my throne. In other words: Muahahahahaha!" Matthews threw his head back with a deep belly laugh that seemed to shake the room. Afterwards, he managed to look sheepish, "Too Much, maybe? It seemed like the thing to end that with?"
"M-Matthews...if I go down..I'm going to..I'm going to.." Yusuke blinked, glancing at Amakaze as the others voice deepened from a tenor into a bass range. His voice became a kind of growl as his nails lengthened into claws, white hair spreading over his arms as his smile revealed terribly sharp fangs.
"No Ama, don't!" It was never entirely clearly which of the brothers said it, but the heartfelt sentiment was certainly there. Matthews gestured to his left and both Caspar and Zandock his the wall with a sharp thud. After that, the soldier turned to face Amakaze as the other changed, his face taking on a expression that bordered on ecstatic.
"All right, Ama, show me what you've got..."
Amakaze continued to change, giving himself up willingly as his ears expanded, becoming pointed as his blonde hair lengthened. His eyes opened wide as the pupils came together, drawing into a single slit like a cat's eye, though a white light from within his eyes soon obscured the pupils and iris. His claws glinted in the dim light as he stood, unhindered by the problems that stopped his more human side.
"Ama..." Zandock's voice was low as he struggled to rise, "Koenma will..kill you..."
"Matthews...If I go down..." Amakaze managed between laughter. Not his normal laugh of good humor but a lower, deeper, and even more evil laugh, "If I go down I'm taking you with me!"
To be continued...