Everything feels numb here.
Oka Ruto has no idea where here even is.
She sees and hears the outside world through a fog and her limps feels so heavy if she tries to move. She gave up on moving a long time ago. There's nothing left for her to do but feel what this thing is doing with her body.
Feelings of anger and desperation embody the demon that has taken control and Oka's emotions are a tiny speck caught in the waves of all of it.
At first it was Oka's anger that fueled their power. Killing the soulless clones, murdering Kaga's club members, making him and Ayano suffer, that was all Oka but now, after she summoned more demons, Oka was slowly pushed out of the seat of power.
Her world got fogger as the demon assured her that everything is going well, that they're gaining so much power and are just about to spread it into the rest of the universe. It sounds so beautiful.
So why does she feel so empty?
This isn't what she wanted. Oka was promised to feel no more fear, to have power.
"That's exactly what you gain, child."
But I'm doing nothing. I feel only when you feel. There's nothing but anger here.
"I have many things to be angry about."
And there's memory lane reflecting in the nothing around her.
The void around her consciousness felt crueler, showing glimpses of a horror Oka has only theorized on. It's amazing to learn all of this but experiencing it is agony.
It is a mind numbing chill that pricks into her skin, clawing at her eyelashes to make her watch and watch and remember pains that do not belong to the world she knows.
She sees the demon's human days. It suffers under a person that distinctively reminds her of Kaga. There are countless experiments forcing the weak body to become a gateway to multiple worlds.
Oka feels the pain of cells stretching far too thin and the electricity and flames that burn everywhere.
More than anything, the anger pounds the space that takes up Oka's head, it thumps like a fast heartbeat and it roars throughout this void and burns into her very being.
"You say you feel only when I feel? You are wrong. I feel this chronically, I take all of your pains to increase our power. Child, leave this school for me and I'll give you the world. That's all I ask."
But I wanted to PUNISH them. I wanted to KILL them. Let me FEEL.
"You will have your chance, child. Your Kusha likely has something planned for us. Once the moment rises, you'll feel it all. In the meanwhile, be patience and feel my wrath."
The memories flicker and Oka sees the darkness beyond the world she exists in. It's filled with emotions more than just angry as her other half encounters a plethora of demons. All inflict a pain that tears out Oka's voice and ability to think.
Every thought she tried to make instantly crumbled under the weight of the demon's memories of torment. Her mind was pounded and twisted and melded with the pain, understanding how the only way its owner endured it all was for one purpose.
Revenge, there was no greater wish.
They both want to make someone suffer. That desperation and craving for blood is overwhelming and it grinds into her consciousness. It's all a wonderful idea, to make someone they hate feel the pain that plagued her life.
That's when the door to her clubroom is smashed open by a giant robot piloted by two girls.
"It's about time you arrived," the demon announced, "although I was expecting the scientist."
"Hey bitch," Ayano Aishi jumped down and pointed a sword at them, "remember me?!"
"I do, you're the one who walks with blood and misery," the demon laughed.
The redhead in the robot maneuvered her machine to take some threatening steps closer. "Oka, we know you're in there. Stop all of this. Your friends are getting hurt."
"My club is trapped by Kaga. They were supposed to join me! Kaga takes and takes and COMSUMES AND CORRUPTS."
The girls flinch at the volume of Oka's ranting. White noise pulsed from the smallest of movement from her lips.
"Hey, hey, he's the worse," Ayano interrupted, "but right now you're doing the work for him. He wants to take over the world and you're doing the heavy lifting."
The noise that comes out of Oka's mouth is one of true torment and anger.
"Stop antagonizing her," Info hissed to her partner, "we're supposed to be connecting with her."
"Shit talking a boy we all hate is connecting, Info."
"I hate you two just as much."
Both girls slowly turn their heads back at her with the gall to be shocked.
Oka sent hands over to the metal shell.
"Info is a menace to the school and a coward of a person. Her involvement with Kaga's plans is the trigger for this fire. She is the one who interferes and fails to make anything right!"
Her phantom claws rake down the metal, crushing it until they finally grasp at flesh. Held tightly in the cold hands, Info squirms violently. As an afterthought, Oka summons more hands to occupy Ayano who's slashing her sword wildly.
Oka watches gleefully as terror is etched upon Info's face. Finally, the faceless looming monitor of their school is reduced into a scared little girl.
The red head tries to maneuver the controls of her metal beast, a mere toy compared to Oka. Demonic hands slitter in through the cracks to continually break down the shell as Info screams at the claws at her throat.
Floating closer, Oka feels the demon raise her hand to lightly trace a sharp nail down Info's cheek.
"You little lynch pen," the demon coos. "You should have stayed in your place like a good little human."
Quick as lightning, Info gets backhanded so hard that her glasses go flying off. Her body tumbles with the hit, knocked to the cold floor reeking with shadows.
Then there's an angry wail from the girl with the sword that shines with a radiance that pierces the fog around Oka's head.
To the human eye, Ayano Aishi just looks so ridiculous in her school uniform wielding a long katana of all things. Yet here within the demon's strength, Oka sees a darkness that smells of old bitter wine, sealed off and fermented to a precise taste of misery.
"And you Ayano, you were as lonely as I. I saw it, your misery and suffering in the silence."
"Silence?" She barks, "You think that's what's hurting me?" Ayano slashes her sword with unnerving precision, slicing the demonic limps scratching her. "I got a fuck ton of problems that Kaga already pissed off about. I don't need you doing the same exact thing for some sympathy!"
"I don't need sympathy!"
"Cleary you want it! But apparently no one in the world shares your problems and you just had to go to a demon for the solution. Honestly, Kaga would be better! And that guy's a dick!"
"Don't lecture me about his sins!"
Ayano hacks away at the newly summoned arms, scraping at warm flesh, splaying blood around.
"I couldn't care less about your life but you made it everyone's problem! You're the reason everyone is scared and hurt and it's real shitty you think you're the victim!"
Crumbled up in the corner, a beaten and battered Info hisses, "Do you really think provoking her is gonna get Okay back?!"
"Yes! No!" Ayano groaned, rolling her eyes while still slashing her sword about, "I don't know! I just hate how after everything I went through; Oka's the one to dive off the deep end, like what does this even mean?"
"It means you are UNWORTHY, PATHETIC, HUMAN!"
"Oh and you are?" Ayano barks, "Little Oka, scared of not shadows but of the sun. Really, are you actually feeling any of this?"
The girl swings down the dangerous metal, ebbed with something that reeks of pureness.
And she doesn't, Oka doesn't feel the pain, just a shudder in her core as she watches the limitless pale arms spring from the darkness only to be hacked away. She feels the shake in her foundation but it is not her mass.
It's still not her fight, as much as she claims that it is. What kind of war is she leading if she's not the one spilling blood?
She'll just be like Kaga, sending an army in place of his cowardliness.
"I FEEL Ayano Aishi. I FEEL the void of nothing and everything."
In the space within her mind, that vast foggy numbness, Oka attempts to press her consciousness against the white noise.
"Ha," the demon's laughter is scratchy, fire and ice grinding together in a tragedy, "is this truly what you want?"
The same fog that wraps around her mind, her soul, her everything, it starts to tighten and squeeze, and suddenly there is now something in the nothing.
Agony and rapture and eternal scorn.
"Why should I let you feel?" The demon yowls, "You had your turn, your years in the universe. Now it's mine turn!"
The cruel void's hold on her presses down on her tiny, insignificant soul.
A universe of life and a black hole of death tug and dig into the vessel known as Oka Ruto and that poor thing is so, so human.
"This is the pain I've numbed for you during our time together," the demon purred to her being. "Purgatory isn't a middle land. It's a sliver of borders constantly edging into the other."
Oka could barely think, barely be aware of anything other than the sensation of her core getting weighted down and grinded upon the strength of gods.
s… stop… it…
All she gets is silence and the tale tells sensations of the demon still in control of her body. Those shudder of unwavering pain.
Is this what she'll get in the end?
For all of her efforts, her partnership with the demon, her terror on Kaga Kusha, and all the blood she has spilled with or without the hands of the dead.
She just wants to stop feeling scared. But that's all she is, scare and fear.
It's human and that's what the demon needed wasn't it.
Those thoughts collapse on each other, waring the semblance of coherent thinking as two ends of the stretch of the universe try to take a claim on her humanity.
Oka sends a cry into that sliver of purgatory, where the gates of heaven and hell creak and groan against each other.
"please… save… me…"
Maybe there's light or darkness, either way, Oka feels the pain intensify as the universe collapses into her.
That pain makes her open her eyes as the fog noosed around her throat fades away and suddenly she sees and hears and feels something outside of the realm of conflict.
Ayano is in her face, her breath hot and fast, with her own eyes wide in a familiar shiver of fear.
That's when Oka realizes the long blade of a katana is pierced fully through her torso.
"Ayano," the vessel whispers, using whatever strength she has left to smile, "thank you."
Her eyes don't close shut as she feels the world go cold and a haze snatches her essence out of her body. She's pulled away fast, the darkness returning but she has the waking world etched into her mind.
Oka sees distantly Ayano still paralyzed, and then sees Uekiya and the Club Presidents and other students running out of the school as that damning barrier of hers falls, and her own Occult Club being lead out by Budo and Kaga as there are still demons running around.
They see her, those demons she has brought to earth, they all watch her leave… and they're grinning.
My pathetic girl, do you realize what you've done?
She doesn't want to turn around. She wants to watch the last glimpses of the world before she faces the one who should her more of the universe. She doesn't owe this thing any more.
Yet, that partner latches onto her core, returning back to that endless torment.
Between places known as heaven and hell, the nonexistent middle gladly takes in the demon and the dead soul.
Oka can't close her crying eyes.
omg i'm almost done with this. next chapter will be the last. this has been a very long ride.
thanks for reading, i hope you all bear with be for the end!