Blood Feast
Chapter 12: Fury of the Occult Angel Part 2
Vincent drew far away from Yatsui's glowing, hazy form.
"What did you do…? Some sort of… chain reaction?"
The luminous creature scrutinized Vincent from a distance. He shrugged when no easy conclusion could be drawn.
"It is that dark chaotic thing, which I had witnessed in the north. That is the culprit—no, there are several but this one is the crowning perpetrator," Yatsui pointed out so matter-of-factly. One fulgurant step did he take towards Vincent and continue on in his tinny, ethereal voice. "Let it out. Is it not the one with a mind and will very much like our own? If not, beyond? Something, perhaps, on… my level."
"You would like that, wouldn't you," the gunman mocked in a low voice. Chaos throbbed in his veins, skittered and twisted for freedom which incited fire and barbed wire to pervade his every limb. Its unrest rang in his ears like the rattling of chains, the angry whispers of malevolent ghosts. A banshee cackle of anticipation. "Well, he's… not coming out today. I'll make sure of that."
"Can you not control it?"
"If I didn't, then I wouldn't be–"
"Then why your reservations?"
"You want to see its true power? Right, you have a death wish." Vincent smirked bitterly at Yatsui behind the rim of his collar then turned away from him. "You just might be surprised."
"I beg to be surprised. Surprise me. Please."
"Suit yourself, but maybe now you'll see what you're really up against. But I'm not going to risk destroying this place. Outside," Vincent said, clutching his claw tight to his stomach, where a particular knot of flame and wire made its stubborn home. Chaos raked at his sides, pulled on his intestines, anything to annoy and distract the gunman, to drop his concentration. Opposite him, the gray figure nodded his head and swiveled about.
"Why, of course. We mustn't sully the sanctity of this, your sacred place."
"Shut up."
Calling out Chaos was usually an arduous task. Vincent had to suffer enough distress, duress or abuse that riled the demon's bloodlust, to make it rise fully to the surface. The same was said for those even without demons, to break their limits and unlock their real potential. But whatever electric moment transpired between him and Yatsui seemed to do the trick in half the time and half the beating, because Chaos's awakening was rearing its head full force and the arm to his gut was all he could do to keep the thing from spilling out right then and there.
Upon leaving Lucrecia's inner sanctuary, out to the little crescent of land that hugged the surrounding mountains and quiet lake, Vincent watched the skies above. He inhaled, exhaled, trying to gather composure before he let the monster loose. There was no room for lack of focus. He could never take Chaos lightly; any stagger in thought promised a perilous scrabble back to humanity.
Meanwhile, the hazy creature stood nearby, a quiet spectator as nearly always.
"Alright," Vincent muttered, his sigh burdened. "You want to see Chaos? You'll get your Chaos…
"Argh!" He doubled over as the burning wires burst from his veins. In turn, a noxious, black vapor ignited from those wires, starting with the soles of his feet, roiling in great puffs that beat furiously at his hair and cape. The vapor pushed heavenward, engulfing his form in its oily blackness, swirling and billowing like some amorphous terror from the depths of space. Yatsui stared on with undivided awe. He could most assuredly feel the power emanating from that dark cloud.
A rumbling and resonant growl sounded from the ravenous air.
A pair of gigantic black webbed wings spiked from the cloud in a blur, reaching towards the sky as if to bring down the sun within their leathery folds. They were exactly as Yatsui remembered in the City of the Ancients. So majestic, so abysmal. Then, like vacuous voids, they prompted the vapor to disperse with several lazy flaps, unveiling the beast he had been so eager to face.
Chaos let out a breathy bellow. Its massive bulk attracted darkness where darkness did not gather at will and its claws dripped stagnant, smoky ink. He glimpsed the narrow yellow eyes set like beads sunken into its skull, the jawful of double-edged fangs drawn in a perpetually sadistic snarl. He noted the grand horns jutting back over the head and the long pointed ears, typical of demons or devils, and just as well the horns that curled over its bristling shoulders.
"So… you are Chaos, in the flesh. The thing that threatens to consume Vincent whole, the beast," uttered Yatsui. The monster rose to its full height, flexing its limbs and wings then drawing them in as to embrace itself in rising from slumber. It quieted down, only its heavy breathing ever-present as it watched the other with patience befitting a judge of life and death. "Hmm… I wonder if I had made a mistake. But, it is too late now. What is done is done. Still I must fight…"
Yatsui slouched at first in the face of his opponent. Then, he gripped his sword harder, brought it up to point head on at Chaos.
"I feel as though I recognize you," he whispered. "You are a part of the earth in ways I could never compare. You are something natural, I might conjecture. A power of the end? Perhaps you are, or perhaps merely a branch of that power. It has been so long, shamefully, I have forgotten. But all that matters is now…"
Yatsui sprang at the devil Chaos, his sword ready. The beast reacted by raising a claw to catch the blade in its palm. The man quickly retreated for another attack, to which the large winged beast anticipated and launched itself forward like a blaze of ebony fire. It swiped repeatedly at Yatsui; he parried the iron-like claws and flipped back to put distance between he and Chaos to wrench an opening for another attack. But the demon did not relent in its violent onslaught. Subsequent to one such backflip, Yatsui landed on one foot and catapulted his misty body over the beast's head. Chaos swung its top half about, its arms flying at lightning speed. The hazy man brought his sword over his right shoulder to block, but even then the demon's force was overwhelming.
Yatsui retreated, spinning the hilt of his sword into a more skillful grip. The demon flew at him again; he used his foil to fly into the air and had thrust his foot between its shoulder blades. Chaos stumbled forward then wheeled in his direction and hissed like a steaming pipe. It drove a fist into the air, bringing forth geysers of black flame from the ground beneath Yatsui's feet. These fonts of darkling fire he dodged with ease and snuffed them with his quickened blade.
"I think it is safe to use other powers against you," the man murmured. "You are not like the man you possess; you would dance in my blood." He took flight on his sole gray wing, fingers thrust down at the demon. They crackled with electricity, whereupon he sprayed the ground below in tapering white rays. Chaos carved its black wings upward, like dark sabers, at the raging rain of light, thwarting them utterly, and took to the sky as well. Once more it clawed at Yatsui in fast repeated swipes. He evaded the shining black talons of the demon.
Save a single dark nick, running the length of his left cheek. And his shoulder, and his neck.
He drifted sideways, dumbstruck. Divided by these tiny injuries, Chaos, with both fists locked, sent him plunging back down to earth. The gray creature collided with the ground in a resounding thud that spanned all directions for miles.
Yatsui lay dazed in a grassy crater, but less than broken by his fall. Still, if he had an upper hand, it'd long slipped by now. No, the upper hand came screaming from above, clashing with the other in an explosion of dust and sound upon impact. As it subsided, Yatsui and Chaos engaged in a game of mercy, with the demon astride him, hand and claws interlocked, trembling under each other's force.
"You are, no, you must be one of Gaia's many tools of destruction," Yatsui whispered, his voice wavering ever so slightly beneath the strain. He barked out a knowing gasp, as if something had struck him, and it wasn't the thing bearing down upon him just now. "I jumped into this before realizing who my true adversary would be. I had assumed only a weak-willed human. But I cannot go back on my word. I have to see this through, even if I should…" The demon snarled and gripped the other's hand tighter, drawing what could only have been blood from Yatsui's knuckles, white thought it was. It flowed freely, mixing with the tepid ink that issued from Chaos's claws, casting a pale pink upon the muted glow of his otherworldly body. He winced, the sensation of needles trailing up his arm. Still he persevered. "No one, no thing, has ever made me bleed in such a long time. It should not even be possible. … Gah!"
Chaos plunged its other idling claws into Yatsui where the shoulder became wing. A very real, blinding pain blossomed out, spreading across his face and neck, flushing it with pale color. The fog that covered him ebbed, exposing white, soft human flesh.
"I had almost forgotten what physical pain feels like… But now I, I have felt enough to last me decades." Yatsui was losing the game of mercy, the bloodletting that Chaos's claws spurred weakening him bit by bit. The demon lifted a cloven hoof and wedged it deep against his groin, adding to the weight that tortured him steadily. "Why do you not speak? Your eyes scream the intelligence to do so… Do you mock me? Will you torment me knowing that I may fall here, never knowing the reason for your… cruelty?"
Chaos snorted and clenched its teeth.
"It is not the end," Yatsui persisted. "Vincent Valentine, even if I should fail to subdue you as I had failed to win you voluntarily, the outcome was still foreseen in my favor. You would have never known… My method of purification, it is an intersection of life forces, a crossroads. I have you where I want you. So, now, the time has come."
Chaos's eyes turned glassy, and it recoiled suddenly. The demon struggled to free itself from the fog building a new front over Yatsui's bared skin. A dull whiteness flecked the demon's inky black claws then slowly started to spread, inching up the arm lodged into the other's body.
He chuckled silently and let his head loll back on his neck.
The whiteness crept up the demon's arms, up its throat and down its hardened torso, even consuming the monstrous wings that did all but pummel Yatsui into nothing. Chaos's effort to break away diminished as, under the whiteness, its body stiffened, becoming helpless as an ill-fated fly entrapped in free-flowing tree sap. The demon could move no more and Yatsui proceeded to pull himself to the beast with his hand.
"Now, you will be free…" As though an old dusty sheet atop a neglected piece of furniture, he snatched and whipped the demon covering from Vincent, leaving behind a dumbfounded gunman, his claw still fingers deep in Yatsui.
With that, the hazy creature turned black and opaque, his wing curled up like a wilting flower, snapping off at the root. Overcome by a wild fit, he punched Vincent square in the gut, knocking him back a good yard or two while he writhed uncontrollably on the ground, clutching the stump where his wing used to be.
The wings of Chaos sprouted from his back, but unfinished, twisted gnarls of broken bone and tattered leather. They shrank down to throbbing tumors and thusly popped, like festering boils.
At last, Yatsui's skin returned to its original, naked salt-white flesh, followed instantly by his black-red-gold robes draping themselves over him. He gasped for air, crying black filth from his shining gold eyes.
Speechless, Vincent stood back farther, nursing his stomach where that sucker punch had caught him off-guard.
"The Chao…" Yatsui called, in a long strangled moan.
"What did you… do…?" Vincent queried.
He'd collapsed on his side, that noxious vapor rising from his balled up body in feathery flakes.
The gunman stared. He felt his left arm grow unusually heavy. He glanced down, trailing a few fingers along the length of his claw. He couldn't quite figure it out but it felt hollow as well as leaden. Vincent's breath caught itself in his throat when his nails hung on cracks in the metal. And the more he fumbled, the more he chanced upon. The claw had been damaged, but how? Shards came away with even the gentlest picking.
The shock hit the gunman more thoroughly when the entire gauntlet, along with the rest of his arm, fell from his side with a chunk, twitching at his foot like a trampled spider.