Hostility till Death

Zero days since the Last Death (Nine Deaths)

As the glass broke, the liquid spilled over her, soaking her black kimono. The voice was begging her, ordering her, to end the life of the horrid-smelling person. She had to do it, she had to kill him. However, the voice, for the first time in a long time, finally fell silent; leaving behind only the silence.

For a very short moment, her mind was finally able to rest from the constant harassment of the voice. For the first time in a great while, the word "kill" did not echo through her mind; an instant in which two words floated before her: "Witch Cult". Even so, that moment was that, a small and miserable moment, after which the voice returned with far greater intensity. But there was a change. This time, the word kill was not being uttered in a hostile, demanding tone.

No, the voice was distorted by fear, terror, horror. Sensations that were soon transmitted to her. With every nerve in her body bursting into thousands of alarm signals, the woman clutched her head to try to keep her mind from falling apart. But it was useless. Cell by cell, her body struggled to reject the irrational fear the voice was transferring to her.

Losing the delicate stability between body and mind, her existence began to fade. Molecule by molecule, her body rejected the appearance that had been forced upon her. With fear gnawing at her Gate and her Od, the girl felt everything inside her fade away, only to be rebuilt on the rubble. The voice was still there, the bloodlust was still there, the fear was still there, and yet something had changed...

After weeks, she felt herself for the first time. She had finally remembered: the cult members had killed them, the only people with whom she had managed to share her heart. The Witch Cult had taken everything from her and defiled her body. Even now, she was able to remember the horrible voice of the woman who corrupted her body with a strange and toxic substance, which enhanced her senses and allowed her to detect that unpleasant smell coming from that woman, in whom it was especially strong, as well as from the rest of the cult; and she had sworn that she would return them the favor.

Now the words "Kill" and "Die" finally made sense; that boy's smell was the same as theirs. The same putrid smell emanating from that disgusting woman and the group of hooded cultists, those who burned down the village, where she had been accepted, and left as calmly as if it had all been a walk in the park...

"What's goin' on?" Halibel wondered, disturbed.

The figure of the woman who was supposed to be Zarestia, the Great Spirit of the wind, began to fade out. The disfigurement started on her face and spread to the rest of her body, but the most noticeable change was on the former. As if it were a veil, the skin that covered Zarestia's skull slowly fell away.

What had once been a face with beautiful porcelain skin, topped by milky-white hair, was now a face of pale parched skin, with gigantic dark circles, a sign of extreme exhaustion, and with disheveled, dry brown hair. The face left behind after the disturbing transmutation was visibly unhealthy. The only thing it had in common with the previous face, were the eyes; sharp eyes clouded by hatred and hostility.

"Hnk!" Subaru, who was still on all fours, let out a gasp of surprise when he realized what was happening with the attacker.

He was so stunned, he didn't even bother to wipe off the blood that had accumulated under his nose and on his lips. And the surprise of both Subaru and Halibel was not only due to the surprising disfigurement of Zarestia. No, what had really left them in the astonished state they were in, were the two glowing protuberances that protruded from the supposed spirit's head.

"I wasn't expectin' this kinda development…" Halibel muttered, staring at the distorted figure that had begun to writhe, as if resisting the transformation.

"Do you know what's going on?" Subaru asked, still on the ground. Halibel, before answering, turned to look at him for a moment silently.

Subaru's body was now drenched in blood. He had hundreds of splinters stuck in his neck, back, arms and feet. Furthermore, he had just suffered a strange hemorrhage that left him bleeding from the nose, crying crimson tears and vomiting blood. And yet, it seemed that none of that had been enough to take him out.

Paying attention to him, Halibel could notice in Subaru another feeling sharing space with the agglomeration of negative emotions; determination. The boy possessed a determination that seemed unshakeable. What situations led him to forge such a strong determination? How much had he suffered to be able to endure so much pain and suffering without breaking? The more Halibel got to know Subaru, the more he was drawn to the mystery that surrounded him.

"Didn't your blessing show it to you?" Halibel then asked back, mockingly.

"My Divine Protection isn't so convenient. It shows me a fairly clear image of the future, but not all the details... Besides, we already interfered with the future I saw, so it's to be expected that from this moment on, changes will occur regarding what I already know." Subaru decided that it was best to shield the information he had, thus continuing with the lie of his false Divine Protection.

Thanks to the artifice he had put set up around the Return by Death, Subaru could claim, in case the information he had obtained was not enough, that his blessing had not shown it to him. Feeling that this was a good cover for his true ability, Subaru considered taking advantage of the rumor that had spread among various members of the Fang of Iron, to then "reveal" how he had obtained information about the attack on the inn.

That way, he might finally have an alternative to having to be silent about how he can get information about the future. Of course, that very lie could well get him into trouble. People may come to expecting him to reveal their futures, or they may blame him if disasters happen and he is unable to prevent them. After all, his ability is bound to death, and Subaru was not willing to die for every event that might occur during his lifetime; that would go against what he promised Anastasia.

In that case, he would have to claim that his Divine Protection is only activated only when his life is in danger, or something similar; that way, he could cover his back. Subaru, realizing that he had beaten about the bush again, shook his head slightly and forced himself to return to reality. With his disrupted mental status, to concentrate on only one thing was becoming very difficult, as was well as to continue ignoring the pain that was afflicting his body.

"Hmm… I see… In that case, I'll tell ya what I know. That woman isn't Zarestia, or at least I don't think she is. And secondly: she's not a spirit, she's an Oni." Blowing out a plume of smoke, Halibel answered his question.

"An Oni..." Subaru agreed that the initial hypothesis that the hostile entity was Zarestia, the Most Beautiful Shinigami, had lost quite a bit of credibility. Now that her figure, which mirrored what the legends about the Great Spirit of wind told, had been shattered, he wondered if this new form was the real one, or if it was an impersonation. Either way, the goal had not really changed.

And as for the true species of the hostile entity, Subaru had already heard about it once. He did not remember who it was that told him the name, but he was sure that somewhere, someone had spoken to him about it. Oni, the beings who shared names with mythological creatures from his country. Now that he had one in front of him, he could tell that indeed she resembled a bit what was told in the legends of his homeland; especially due to her horns.

He had gained more information that could be useful in the event of his death; yet he was still clinging to the goal of ending the cycle of death in that loop. So he didn't expect to make use of that information, at least not in a future battle against Zarestia, or whoever that Oni woman was. No, she would not make it out of this fight alive, he would make sure of that.

Because he was already beginning to get used to the damage caused by the shadow's punishment, Subaru was able to get back on his feet despite being almost completely coated in blood. Spitting out an amalgam of clotted blood and saliva, Subaru watched the crazed Oni. Like a slug that had been salted, the woman writhed even while standing, as her old appearance completely replaced by the new.

After a brief moment, the woman finally began to calm down, as if getting used to her new sickly-looking figure. With a rough look, she stared at Halibel and him. Then her eyes sparkled, almost as if she'd had some kind of realization. Until just a moment ago she had been embracing her body like if afraid of fading away, but now her arms were again in front of her; she would attack at any moment, of that there was no doubt.

"Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! " Then, Subaru was engulfed by a maelstrom of hostility and bloodlust.

The hateful gaze and the aura of hostility crushed Subaru. Feeling his body give way to fear and paralysis, Subaru savored the bitter humiliation. Since the first time he encountered that lethal female, Subaru had been overwhelmed by her aura of death each and every time he ended up in front of her; and he was already fed up with it. After what had been a time of relative calmness, wrath and hatred further clouded his reason and the rest of his emotions.

Thanks to the numbness caused by that flame that burned inside him, Subaru had been able to withstand the pain caused by the internal bleeding and the multiple splinters that were buried all over the back of his body. And that was largely because that alienated fragment of his being was exerting greater control over him; something that Subaru was willingly allowing.

Even so, unlike the time when he ended up committing the sin that marked his arms, hatred and wrath had not yet completely blinded him. The thirst for revenge he felt was not strong enough to drive him out of control. And the reason for that was that the Oni woman, until now, had not brought him to such a radical turning point as the two assassins did.

However, the more pain he felt, the more he was humiliated, the more people he cherished were made to suffer and were murdered; this hatred within his chest, equivalently, burned more and more intensely. And at that moment, after all that he had been through since the first meeting on the main avenue, the thirst for revenge was already starting to blind him completely...

Subaru, driven by sheer survival instinct and adrenaline, leapt up, ignoring the pain that afflicted him, and jumped backwards, placing himself behind Halibel. The demi-human, who seemed ready to use an ability before he mentioned to him his plan to break the taboo, finally executed his cloning technique. One of the Halibel's stood in front of Subaru, two others stopped the powerful attack launched by the Oni and the remaining one, which seemed to be the original, rushed to the action.

With her horns glowing in a phosphorescent violet hue, the Oni retreated using her wind magic, simultaneously casting powerful counterattack. Halibel disappeared from the trajectory of the gust of wind, letting his clones take charge of repelling it, to then reappear next to her and carry out a powerful thrust.

"Aaaarggggh!" Releasing a shriek of pain and rage, the unknown Oni pushed Halibel away with a dense gust of wind. With a gesture of anguish and frustration, the woman, whose figure did not appear to be more than twenty-five years old, pressed her side with one hand, while holding the other in front of her.

Like a fountain of crimson liquid, gushes of blood flowed out from the depths of the attacker's abdomen. The wound was exactly on the side of his abdomen, and although a significant amount of blood was gushing from it, it did not appear to be a fatal cut; however, it was a wound deep enough to restrict her movement. And considering that Halibel had just created three clones and was in perfect health, it was clear that she was now at a huge disadvantage.

The Oni herself must have noticed it, since after staring for a moment at Halibel, and then at Subaru, who was being shielded by up to three Clones, she decided that the best thing was to retreat. With the smell of liquor and blood swirling around, it was clear that she would not be able to fully focus on the fight even if she made an effort, so it was best to ignore the insistent bloodthirsty voice and the deep desire for revenge, and continue the attack on another occasion.

"Halibel, that damn bitch's gonna try to escape by casting a wide area attack that will prevent us from chasing her! You've to stop her!" Realizing his enemy's intentions, Subaru warned Halibel about them.

"Thanks, kid!" Halibel thanked Subaru for the warning and then looked carefully at his opponent. The woman, noticing that her intentions had been read, decided not to waste any more time and carried out her escape.

With an ear-rending cry, the Oni surrounded her body with swift currents of air. However, the wind did not condense in a dome, on the contrary, it exploded, expanding all over the street. Halibel, in spite of having been warned about this technique, could do nothing to prevent it. However, he did not stand idly by. With a nod he indicated something to his clones, who immediately understood his intentions.

While one stayed with Subaru to protect him, the others went to Halibel's side to help him knock down the Oni that had started running in the direction of one of the buildings. Halibel leapt into the air and threw two of her kunais. The Oni, sensing this, tried to surround herself again with a wind barrier, pushing herself to her limit.

However, one of the clones appeared next to her before she could cast the spell. The one who had been mistaken for Zarestia perceived the sudden appearance of the clone, so she canceled the casting of the wind dome and released a powerful explosive blast of air in its direction. The clone, recognizing that its time of existence was coming to an end, hurled one of its throwing weapons in the direction of the neck of the one who was about to become its murderer.

The clone was hit by the explosion of wind, but the Oni again used a gust of wind to deflect the kunai that had been thrown at her, making its last effort pointless. What was not futile was the distraction that allowed the two kunais that Halibel threw to pierce her back, causing her to cry out in agony again.

"No... Fuck..." Amidst wails of pain, the woman muttered in a husked voice that seemed less devoid of reason than before she changed her figure.

Halibel, seizing the opportunity, approached the other clone that had joined him to fight. Between the two, they enclosed the flanks of the Oni, making it impossible for her to have an easy escape. Even so, she would not give up just because of that. With a shriek of rage, the woman again summoned a shield of air around her.

"It looks a lot less stable and sturdy than the previous one..." Halibel commented to himself, noting that the second wind shield had much less power than the first one. His clone, realizing this as well, rushed to the attack prior to him.

The clone threw a kunai which, although it was hit by the wind gusts, and therefore deflected, still managed to partially penetrate the dome; or sphere, since now that she was in the air, the wind was not obstructed by the street. Grinning, Halibel swiftly approached and jumped over the wind sphere, throwing his kunai straight at the Oni's head. The weapon perfectly pierced the gap between gusts of wind that he had discerned.

"No! Die!" Releasing a cry, the impostor Zarestia deflected the kunai with the wind and tried to get away from the demi-human and his clone once more.

However, the pain caused by the blades pinned to her back caused her to stumble. "My time has come!" With one last cry of victory, the clone launched itself directly into the wind shield. With a kunai in each hand, Halibel's copy thrust both arms into the wind sphere, using the kunais to disrupt the wind currents.

The female, realizing that her shield had been fully weakened, annulled it and attacked without hesitation the clone that had ruined her last method of protection. Three wind blades sliced through the clone, leaving behind a cloud of smoke. Halibel, who had seen everything from a safe distance, charged at the unprotected Oni.

"NO!" Reacting in time, the woman turned around and raised a hand to cast a magical attack with which to behead Halibel. However, her reaction was not swift enough to stop the Shinobi's assault. With her eyes wide open, the Oni watched in awe as one of her arms was sliced off just where the elbow began.

The limb fell to the ground, coloring the street red. With jets of blood gushing from her severed arm, the impostor Zarestia let out a non-human sounding bellow and then her body was surrounded by wind again. Just like Subaru a moment ago, the little reason she had recovered after the metamorphosis, once more was undermined by the insistent voices, leaving her body to move only due of her survival instinct and the anger that burned inside her.

With gusts of wind, capable of reducing the steel to shavings, enveloping her, the attacker propelled herself against the ground and leapt onto the roof of the nearest building. Halibel, who had been too close to her to avoid the outburst of madness, was hit by an explosive gust of wind and thrown away, thus crashing into the stone street.

Feeling that she had finally managed to get rid of the annoyance that was keeping her from escaping, the anger-blind Oni looked not towards Subaru, but towards the upper-class district. She would escape there and destroy the pesky mansion, that had served as the barrier that had prevented her from executing the member of the Witch Cult. She would destroy it, then return for him and finally slicing him into thousands of pieces...

"Kill, kill, kill..." Her bloodlust was prompting her to go for Subaru at once, but the clone was still protecting him, and in her current state she was not sure she could beat him. If she had been patient and waited weeks to finally be able to take her revenge, she could not now let hatred lead her to her own doom.

With the last iota of reason she had left, the Oni girl decided to put her target aside and set out to leave the Free Trade Metropolitan Area. Leaving behind an injured and humiliated Halibel, and an enraged and frustrated Subaru, the woman jumped to the roof of the next building, and then the next, and the next. And he was about to disappear from Subaru's sight, when her wounded body was blasted by a powerful sound wave.

"Waaaaahhhhhh!"

Subaru, who had insisted on the clone until he convinced it to pursue the impostor Zarestia, watched as she received the full brunt of Mimi's magical attack. With a smile creeping from the corners of his mouth, Subaru watched with satisfaction as the Oni crashed into the roof of the building from which she had just jumped.

Boom! The rumble rang out as the whole block was shaken. Mimi had managed to impact the attacker so that she did not enter the building; had she done so, there was the possibility that an accident had occurred leading to someone's death. So the hostile woman slammed through the wooden roof diagonally and crashed into the street, leaving a crater around her.

Subaru, without getting too close to the area where the Oni fell, looked carefully for any sign of life. That attack would have been enough to disintegrate a Guiltylowe, but he was well aware that the hostile woman knew how to avoid being harmed as much as possible; she had shown it that way on the various occasions in which she had been attacked by Mimi and survived. However, considering the state she was in, Subaru had faith that this time it would work. But…

"KiLL, kIlL, kilL… I mUsT kiLL…" A distorted voice reached Halibel's clone's and Subaru's ears, which was enough to put them both alert; it was clear that the woman had survived, now what they needed was to know what state she was in. "Die!" From the dust that was hovering in the air, the figure of the attacker emerged.

"Halibel!" Without needing to say anything else, Subaru stepped back and let the clone take over. It, with the characteristic speed of his summoner, threw itself into the cloud of dust. Subaru, who was watching from behind, could not help but look on in complete amazement.

From the cloud of dust emerged completely the body of the impostor Zarestia. She was missing an arm and from the stump a piece of bone was sticking out; one of her eyes had completely popped out of its socket and was hanging from the veins that joined it to the brain, right next to her fractured nose. Her whole body was bathed in blood, she had serious injuries on all sides and one of her legs was bent in an unnatural way.

And yet, the aura of hostility and hatred that surrounded her had not diminished, quite the contrary. With a whirlwind of bloodlust around her, the figure advanced clumsily toward Subaru. From Halibel's clone, only a cloud of ashes remained; probably it had been reached by one of the deadly wind gusts that lashed out at everything in the perimeter around its caster.

"Onii-san! Are ya okay? There's blood all over you!" From behind him, he heard a few hasty steps approaching him and then a childish voice called out to him. Without fully turning around, he looked at her sideways.

"Mimi, I'm glad you got here in time." He said with a crooked smile on his face, ignoring the question about his condition. Mimi, who had once again arrived without her liger, moved to his side. She looked exactly the same as on all the previous occasions she had gone to get him, except for a cloth bag she was carrying in her hand. Noticing the object, Subaru spoke to her again. "I see you brought what I asked for."

"Yeah! Here ya go, Onii-san! Will that really do? I wasted a lot of time putting it all together, maybe if I'd arrived a little earlier…" Mimi handed him the bag while looking worriedly at the fierce figure that kept slowly approaching them.

"I already told you… You arrived just in time. So don't worry about it…" Focusing again on the Oni, Subaru added. "It doesn't seem like Halibel's in sight, he probably hasn't fully recovered from that Oni's attack yet; even so, time's running out... In that case, I'll need your help, Midge. Could you give me a hand?"

"Halibel…?" She murmured, confused. Still, he put that aside and nodded energetically. "Aha! Sure thing, Onii-san! Mimi promised that she'd help you if you needed it, and she won't break her word." Determined, Mimi stepped forward, placing herself between him and the woman. "Mimi doesn't quite understand what's going on, but she'll give her all to meet your expectations."

"Great! In that case, I need you to distract that wounded woman while I look for an opening so I can use what you brought me."

"Okay!" The little girl, without waiting another second, launched into the attack. The Oni, realizing that she would once again be interrupted, began to cast multiple gusts of wind in Mimi's direction. Nimbly, she dodged them and began circling her new target at a safe distance.

"Stop... Now… Die! Die!" In a voice both distressed and enraged, the shattered female figure casted increasingly desperate attacks. The erratic air currents struck parts of the street and buildings, blowing them to millions of pieces.

"Dona!" Mimi protected herself with a wall of earth and retreated, changing course and closing in on the Oni again.

"Enough… Enough… Enough… Die! Die! DIE!" Increasingly desperate, the entity of death and hostility continued to unleash completely erratic wind attacks. Mimi, using her earth magic to shield herself, slowly approached the woman. It was clear that the impostor Zarestia would not endure much more, and Mimi was hoping to take advantage of that. "D-ie… Di…e"

Losing her footing as she leaned on her fractured foot, the female Oni stumbled. And, as expected, Mimi took advantage of this moment without wasting any time. "Al Dona! Subaru Nii-san, now!" The ground beneath the feet of the personification of bloodlust exploded, rising into the air, after which Mimi indicated to Subaru that this was his opening.

"I… mu-st k-ill...! D-ie...!" The Oni, shielding herself with her wind, had avoided most of the damage caused by the earth's blast. With her single functional eye, she glanced at Subaru and pounced on him. Mimi, who had moved away due to the gusts of wind around her, was too far away to be able to stop her; she had become overconfident, believing that her spell would be enough to stop the attacker.

"Given the situation, it seems that I'll have to take care of it... I'll give you the opportunity you were lookin' for, kid!" However, Halibel, who had not shown herself since receiving the attack of the Oni, appeared right above her and, besides those words, threw two more kunais towards her back. The two steel blades managed to pierce both of the woman's lungs, causing her to immediately fall to the ground.

"In that case… Take this, you fucking bitch!" Subaru, who had felt the thirst for revenge, anger and despair eating away at him for several minutes, did not miss the opportunity and forcibly opened the bag Mimi had brought him; that was the small favor he had asked her before ending the metia call. He took a kind of metal cylinder out of the bag and then hurled it, the bag, towards where his enemy had fallen.

"Arrrrhggghhh!" An inhuman shriek came from the same place as the sound of dozens of glass bottles breaking. "Bring me several bottles of liquor"; it had been the first part of the favor. With fire burning in his chest and deep in his pupils, Subaru opened the cylinder and pulled out a small stone that glowed with a faint orange hue. Holding the stone tightly, Subaru stretched out his hand and threw it in the same direction that he had thrown the bag. And then his gaze was consumed by the flames...

The fire mana-imbued Lagmite used to bring to life his reinvention of the lighter had now served to express, in a literal way, the fire of hatred and wrath that had scorched his insides since he died pathetically from an attack by the imposter Zarestia. Now, before his eyes, the seriously wounded woman was trying in vain to extinguish the flames that were cooking her in life.

"NO! K-ill! I… mu… ust… ki… ill..." However, the wind attacks she was using were causing the opposite effect to what she intended.

The wind was fanning the flames that blanketed her, as it had done with those flames that were burning inside Subaru, thus accelerating her own death. After a few seconds, the burning figure stopped moving and finally remained motionless, completely silent. The aura of hostility and hatred that had covered the place finally faded, and with it did the life of the girl whose desire for vengeance had vanished unfulfilled.

"I made it... at last…" Subaru muttered, with a broken smile on his soiled face. Now that he had achieved his most immediate goal, the fire that had been burning within his chest finally subsided, freeing him from the numbness that had kept him up all this time. Feeling the exhaustion and pain suddenly return, Subaru fell to the ground, completely unconscious. He had achieved his goal, and that brought peace to his spirit; not caring that it had now been corrupted by a new stain of blood.