I don't own Re:Zero or any of the characters.
Showdown
"The Witch Cult thinks they know pain? They think they know Hell?" Ian snorted, a wicked grin spreading over his face. "I'm going to show them Hell. I'm going to make this cunt's entire existence an unbearably agonizing torture for sending Elsa to kill Rem and Ram!"
"This is a vendetta!?" Subaru gaped.
"Does it matter?" Ian asked. "I'm still the most powerful here."
Then, he turned back to the front and tipped forward. Subaru yelped in surprise, but a second after he fell, he suddenly shot back up past the window, his magic keeping him aloft by expelling wind magic in a constant blast like an air-powered jet thruster. Ian rocketed after Capella, who had become a dragon again, sealing her own fate. Ian grinned as he neared Capella and she pulled her head back, inhaling. He lashed outward with his whip sword, embedding the blade in her back before retracting it, yanking himself past her head in time to avoid her black flames. His White Whale Sword cut into the side of her neck, then tore a trail behind him along her back to the base of her tail before he stopped, his magic shroud deflecting her blood away from him. He couldn't let that touch him, yet.
Once the spray of blood had stopped, he shot forward, splitting her already-healing back open once again and sheering off a wing. Capella shrieked in pain as she fell, crashing heavily to the ground. Then, the other Black dragon was on her, roaring and snarling, and ripping, and clawing, and biting. It was brutal, but short-lived. Before long, her tail slammed into the side of his head before his claws raked across his torso, throwing him back. Then, Ian's whip sword tore through her right shoulder, catching on bone and ripping her foreleg entirely off.
Her scream of agony echoed through the city for only a second before he dropped past her, his White Whale Sword splitting her lower jaw, then down the underside of her throat, turning her scream into a gurgling, choking sound. He shot under her, slashing her stomach open as well before she suddenly shrunk. Her wounds sealed as she became a petite blonde with her hair in a ponytail with a rose attached to the end, dressed in thigh-high black leggings with her toes exposed, tight black sleeves that looped around her middle fingers and that covered her shoulders and were connecter around her neck in a high collar with a metal chocker-like necklace over it, a bikini, and a pair of short shorts over the bikini bottoms that were practically bikini bottoms themselves. Ian's wide, sadistic grin only grew as her left arm expanded from the elbow down, growing black fur and violet claws, her dragon tail reappeared, though shorter, and a pair of bird wings with razor-sharp feathers sprouted from her back.
"Die!" she shrieked, slashing with her wings, only for Ian drop into a low lunge under them, leaning to his right and slashing her up the front with his White Whale Sword, stepping sideways out of the way of the blood that fell back to the ground.
Capella screamed, staggering away, and swung her tail, only for Ian to flip over it, his whip sword coiling around the tail before slicing it to ribbons. As she screamed this time, however, Ian cackled. Capella's eyes widened before she shrieked in defiant rage, flicking her mangled tail at him and showering him in blood. He skipped backward, avoiding the spray and shot past her, cleaving her in half at the waist. Her lower body instantly turned into black blood, dissolving as she regrew a new one to replace it, and her right arm became a snake, lunging at him, only for him to remove its head. then, he shot forward, slamming a kick into her chest. She exploded backward, bouncing once before flipping and skidding to a stop. She stepped forward just as he slashed, his Hundred Man Strike amputating her right leg at the hip. As she grew a new one, his whip sword wrapped around her before he spun, hurling her and ripping the flesh of her torso to shreds at the same time. Then, as she landed, she fled, taking to the skies with her wings. He cackled psychotically, exploding after her and spun in the air, slinging a blast of wind Magic into her back, the explosion blasting her wings off and ripping her back wide open, exposing her spine and ribs. She crashed to the ground, bones shattering, only for the damage to be undone in a second, She turned to fight, and one of his daggers sunk into her left eye socket on the tail end of a throw. She screamed, ripping it out along with the eye and hurled it back, hitting him in the throat, only for him to skip back and avoid it, catching her and slashing. She allowed the blade to split her torso open in order to drill a left-handed punch into his chest, hurling him backward, bones creaking. Again he cackled, eyes wide with excitement and his psychotic smile not even wavering.
"Is that it!?" he taunted as he pursued the fleeing Sin Archbishop. "Is that all the Sin Archbishop of Lust can do!?" he laughed mockingly. "What a disgrace! Now who's acting like a scared, disgusting insect!?"
She shrieked in rage, launching herself at him, but he hurled another blast of wind magic into her face, sending her exploding backward in a spray of blood, her regenerating body bouncing and crashing down one of the streets leading away from City Hall.
As she rolled to a stop, Ian landed opposite her from where their fight began. Capella shrieked in a desperate rage and launching herself at him, both arms becoming jagged, horrible blades below her elbows. He shot forward, deflecting her blades with his White Whale Sword before spinning and splitting her in half with his whip sword, this time allowing himself to be splattered with her blood, though careful to keep it out of his eyes, nose, and mouth. He waited, ready to skip backward, only for nothing to happen. He grinned, as Capella's new lower body again replaced the last. She shrieked in rage and charged, only for his whip sword to snap up from where it had been lying along the ground, splitting her up the front before he took her head off with his White Whale Sword. Capella shrieked in pain as she regenerated her body again, only to then transform into a dragon again. She roared, spewing flames down at him and he spun, slinging a blast of flames into them, scattering them and blasting the front half of her head apart. Just as the last of the flames cleared, Ian's whip sword stabbed into her heart directly, Capella shrieking in pain as he retracted it to pull himself up to her. Her head swung around to burn him again, only for Rem's flail and an El Fura from Ram to slam into her head, obliterating it and hurling her neck to the side, the flames missing Ian. Then, Ian landed on her back and drove his free sword into her spine before twisting sharply as he retracted the others, cackling as Capella's blood squirted out in a geyser. Ian's magic protecting him from it this time. Then, he shot forward as her head finished regenerating, spiraling around her neck to her head before flipping off and away from her, Capella shrieking in agony. Then, as Ian shot back toward her, she turned to incinerate him again. However, before she could, a barrage of wind blades tore into her entire body at once, making her shriek in agony.
"Open wide!" Ian shouted, hurling his whip sword into the air.
"Just shut up and be eaten like the meat you are!" Capella shrieked.
Then, she snapped, swallowing him whole.
"Your mistake," Ram said from where she, Rem, and Elena were watching from a nearby rooftop.
"Your loss," Rem nodded.
Capella's eyes widened just before she shrieked in agony, Ian's blade jutting out just behind the left side of her jaw before carving downward as he used his magic to shred his way down her throat, spiraling and carving her neck into a spring. Then, as he reached her shoulders, with his sword sticking straight up, he transitioned his movements into a vertical slash, a Hundred Man Strike splitting her body from neck to about the middle of her tail, allowing him to escape her body, landing lightly on the ground with a wide, wicked sneer, Capella's shriek of agony growing rapidly as she fell, her body knitting itself back together, trapping the two scabbards he'd left lodged in her shoulders trapped in her body, spilling the toxin that he'd filled them with to keep what was on his blades fresh. Capella crashed to the ground, writhing in agony as the toxin attacked her nerves, and Ian pulled his whip sword's blade free of the ground, turning to her. Then, he lashed outward at her again and again, black blood and severed bits of dragon sailing into the air as he cackled over and over, covered head to toe in Capella's blood, except for around his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, where he'd used magic to divert it. His harsh, vicious laugh quickly grew hysterical as he lashed outward again and again, his laughter fighting Capella's shrieks of agony for volume. Finally, Capella's humanoid body suddenly formed from a severed limb, the rest all dissolving as she fled. However, her gait was stumbling and broken now, every step sending agony shooting through her with so much of the toxin inside of her. And on top of that, it seemed she was beginning to run out of steam. Ian's magic roared to life and he shot after her, pulling both swords back, only for Capella to turn, her blonde hair turning blue as her ponytail shrank back into her head, her figure filling out and her breasts expanding as her clothes shifted into a maid outfit.
"Ian!" Capella gasped in Rem's voice, eyes wide.
Then, Ian slashed, splitting her across the chest in an "X" and sending her screaming and bouncing away from him. "You have gall. You really think that I can't tell the difference between you and Rem?" He stopped, standing over Capella, eyes wide with fury, and his sadistic grin gone, pure abhoration being all that remained. "This fight is over! You can barely stand through the pain, and I can keep going for days."
That was a lie. In actuality, he was running dangerously low on mana, and if Capella hadn't tried to trick him as she had, he wouldn't have even stopped until one of the two had died.
"I'll give you a single chance to live, you obnoxious, disgusting cunt!" Ian snarled. "You do one thing for me, and I won't kill you. I'll let your pain end here for today."
Capella opened her mouth to insult him, only for the dagger he hadn't thrown earlier to embed itself in the bundle of nerves in her pelvis. Capella's shriek of agony sent blood spewing from her mouth, then again as he twisted the dagger before ripping it out.
"Yes or no, cunt?" Ian snarled.
"What do you even fucking want!?" Capella shrieked, clutching at her slowly-sealing wound.
Ian stood, tossing the dagger aside before motioning for Rem and the other two to join them. "The one with pink hair is a member of the Demon Clan who had her horn cut off. You're going to regrow it for her. Do that, and you have my word that I won't kill you."
"What good is the word of an ins-" she shrieked in agony as he stabbed through her right eye and out the back of her head, then pulled his blade back.
"You'll do it, or I'll continue to torture you until you beg me to let you do it," Ian snarled furiously.
Capella screamed for another couple of seconds until her eye had finished regenerating before standing and walking over to Ram, reaching out to her forehead, Ram lifting her hair up out of the way.
"I recommend you don't double cross me," Ian warned, Capella looking down and seeing his White Whale Sword held between her legs, a sphere of raging wind magic the size of Ian's fist hovering just above the blade, ready to rip into her at a moment's notice.
Capella glared at him, but turned her eyes back to Ram, Rem extending her own horn both as a point of reference and in preparation for battle.
"I don't need it," Capella said. "I can read what it's supposed to be from her body language and her Od."
A moment later, several things happened in quick succession, to the point that it was nearly concurrent. Ram gasped harshly in surprise as her flesh and blood flowed from her horn's scar, knitting itself together into a new horn, which shone as brightly as Rem's. As Ram gasped, Rem formed a massive barrage of ice spikes, readying herself to skewer Capella with them. Then, just as Ram's horn finished regrowing, Agony suddenly ripped through Ian from his head downward, searing his vision a blinding white before robbing him of the strength to stay conscious. Rem and Ram both shrieked in rage, striking with their respective magic, Rem with her hand and Ram with her wand. As nearly a hundred ice spikes skewered through Capella's body and blades of wind ripped not only Capella apart, but a solid mile of the city behind her, Ram's wand shattered, the remains turning to black sludge and dissolving before they hit the ground. Capella's remains transformed into a cloud of flies, but just as Ram turned to slaughter them, mana suddenly exploded toward the twins, then downward toward the ground. Both sisters, along with Elena, spun, staring at the thing pulling the mana in. Ian. Specifically, the shining white horn extended from the center of his forehead. Blood flowed from around it, washing away Capella's toxic blood, and Ian was writhing in pain, unable to scream. All three stared for only a moment before Ram snatched Ian off the ground and took off at a sprint.
Ian groaned as he stirred slowly, looking around slowly through bleary eyes, seeing various shapes around him moving about on fast forward, except for three, which remained resolutely in place, one to each side and one by his feet. Slowly, as he blinked, losing bits of time each time he did, his vision cleared, finally allowing him to recognize Elena at his feet, then Rem and Ram to either side of him, Rem to his right and Ram to his left. As he looked over the three, seeing the black and red blood staining Ram's dress, Felix walked over with Beatrice and knelt beside him.
"How do you feel?" Felix asked.
"Like shit," Ian said. "I take it Lust double crossed me. Did I get infected with her blood?"
"No," Felix said, shaking his head. "Your situation is a bit more complicated nyow than that."
Ian frowned. "Can we skip the cryptic beating around the bush?"
"Like he said, it's really complicated," Rem said. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"Lust regrew Ram's horn, then it's just pain," Ian said. "Did it work?"
Ram nodded, eyes watering as she extended her horn. "Yes. Thanks to you, I have my horn back."
"Then, what happened next?" Ian asked.
"I can explain that, in fact," Beatrice said. "When you received a blood transfusion from Ram a year ago, you were already dying, I suppose. In order to save you, I had to use the bit of Ram's Od that lingered in her blood to stabilize your own fading Od. As a side effect, you gained the violent tendencies and bloodlust of a demon, as you already knew. Another side effect that I decided not to mention was that if Ram ever dies, your Od will be left unstable again, and you'll die as well, in fact."
Ian's eyes widened before he nodded. "That makes sense. So, what happened to me?"
"When Ram's horn regrew, her Od was restored to what it should be, I suppose," Beatrice said. "It was weakened due to the loss of her horn, but returned to its natural state now. However, when it did, the bit of her Od fused to yours resonated with the Od within her own body, in fact."
"Remember when I asked you to stop beating around the bush?" Ian asked flatly.
"Basically, it was so convinced that there should be a horn that it more or less manifested one for itself," Elena said.
Ian stared at her blankly, blinking slowly a few times. "What?"
"You grew a horn," Ram said, reaching up to press a finger to his forehead, Ian wincing as a sharp pain cut into his skin, like touching a cut. "In response to Ram growing her horn back, you also grew one."
"Your own Od was slowly absorbing and adapting to the bit of Od you got from her, so there's a chance that it might have happened on its own down the road, years from now, but Ram's horn regrowing sped up the process and forcefully grew it before your body was ready, causing it to split your forehead open on the way out," Felix explained. "I managed to seal the cut, and your body has accepted the horn, but it'll probably be sensitive for a while."
"So...I'm not dying," Ian said.
"No," Felix confirmed.
"And Ram's not dying."
"I'm fine," Ram assured him.
"And I'm now a demon."
"How irredeemably audacious of you to believe you are anything like Ram or her beautiful sister," Ram said.
"We've decided that you're probably closer to something like a half-demon," Felix said.
"I see," Ian nodded, pushing himself up slowly, raising a hand to lightly prod at the spot where his horn should extend from, feeling the skin warm, along with feeling like he was jabbing a needle into his head each time he touched it.
"Quit poking it!" Ram scolded, smacking his hand away.
"What else did I miss?" Ian asked.
"We finally met up with exactly who we needed most," Felix said, looking over her shoulder just as Reinhard walked into the room, squatting down.
"I heard you defeated the Sin Archbishop of Lust single-handedly, as well as finding a way to both restore Ram's lost power and accidentally gaining some yourself," Reinhard said.
"Something like that," Ian said. "Glad you're finally here. How long was I out?"
"A while," Reinhard said as Felix and Beatrice left. "There are a few things you need to know, but first, there's something I need to know. How long have you known about Lust, and been preparing to force her to restore Ram's horn?"
"A year," Ian said. "I got a tip that she was both the head of the organization that sent the Bowel Hunter after me, Rem, and Ram, and also had an ability to restore lost limbs, both on herself and others, making her nearly immortal, so I devised a plan to use it against her and force her to submit."
Reinhard nodded. "You're much more clever than I gave you credit for. Congratulations."
Ian nodded. "What do I need to know? And what happened to Lust?"
"She escaped and is hidden somewhere within the city," Reinhard said. "While Ram and Rem were concerned with you, she used the distraction to escape."
Ian nodded. "Not exceptionally surprising. She's vulnerable for twelve hour from when my fight started."
"About two or three more hours," Reinhard said. "Not realistic, since she'll stay hidden until it wears off."
"True," Ian nodded. "So, what else happened?"
"Wrath's influence was spread over the city, so Subaru gave a speech to use that influence against them, to turn everyone's fear and anger into hope," Rem said. "It worked wonders. He's a natural at giving speeches."
Ian snorted and nodded. "At least that's one crisis averted. Anything else?"
"Anastasia, Subaru, and The others are planning our next step now," Ram said.
"Then let's get going," Ian said.
"Hold on," Rem said as Reinhard stood. "I should check you over one more time to make sure you're alright."
Ian nodded and Reinhard left as Rem began to check Ian with her healing magic, both for injuries from his fight and his horn, to make sure it had actually been accepted by his body. As she did, Ram sniffed.
"Thank you, Ian," Ram said, sniffing again and wiping her eyes. "Because of you, I have my horn back. Thank you! Thank you so much!"
Ian smiled, pulling her into a kiss, kissing Rem immediately afterward. Once Rem pulled away, he pushed himself up, stretching his sore muscles for a moment before walking out of the small office room they were in, going to rejoin the others.
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