Tell No Tales
CHAPTER SEVEN: Apprehension
Never ever before had he had a job that had taken this long. For weeks now, he had been wandering around Hell, trying to find his two targets and had met with no success at all. It never occurred to him that they would be anywhere else; the afterlife was a big place, but the easiest route to and from anywhere was often straight through Hell. Surely the targets could not have gone any other way.
Kyojin was starting to wonder if his two targets had somehow managed to make themselves invisible so that they might hide from him. Hiding from him was a good idea, of sorts. Or it would be until he found them. Then, he would just smash them to bits with or without Lord Enma's position. No creatures small enough to fit on his tiniest finger were going to outwit him. Not he, Kyojin, the greatest of the Otherworld enforcers.
But what a waste this was, of his talents. Maybe he should not have even been assigned this job. If the targets were so small, then he could easily miss them in a crowd. He needed to see details. He could not just smash everything in sight, much as he might want to. Doing that would bring great retribution form the Grand Kai. And he had already suffered that once; he had no desire to do so again.
But, he decided, as he paused to look around at the surrounding landscape. In the near distance, he could see something that actually rose to a decent height. One of those silly rides that the souls enjoyed partaking of. But maybe it was time to ask again for information from the caretakers down here. If they did not know, he could always just smash them like he had done with all of the others.
And so over to the rides he walked, shaking the ground with his strides as always, a warning to all those at his destination. A warning to stand clear and prepare for his arrival. And to pray that they did not incur his wrath. Wise behaviour, for he imagined that nobody appreciated getting smashed. Which was part of the fun of it.
Souls scattered in his wake as he approached the rides. A smell, and a pleasing one at that, wafted into his huge nostrils, and he bent down to pick up one of the small buildings that were sitting just in front of his feet. A soul fled from this building as he lifted it, flying toward the ground with great haste. Carefully, Kyojin took a sniff and determined that the pleasing scent indeed had come from there. It was that delicious stuff that the souls called cotton candy. Thoughtlessly, he popped the whole building into his mouth, crunching down on it happily. At least those tiny creatures knew how to do something right.
"Hey, what's all the ruckus here?"
The voice was small, though everything was small to Kyojin, and he looked down at his feet to see a blue demon rushing up to meet him. This demon was bigger than the others, wide shouldered, and Kyojin assumed that he was quite upset form the tone of his voice; from his height, he could not see the demon's face.
Recognition seemed to come from the demon a moment later. "Oh, hold on here. Kyojin right?"
Kyojin nodded. "Yes, that is me. I have a question. You will answer it."
"Only if I can, pal."
Hmm. How interesting. This creature did not appear to be afraid of him at all. Nearly every living or deceased thing that he encountered feared him. While the change of pace was intriguing, he was not sure whether he liked it or not. He enjoyed being feared, and when something veered from what one enjoyed, it was generally not a good thing.
He opened his mouth to voice his question, but another one stopped him.
"Goz, what are you doing up there?" called out an angry voice. Stomping up the hill came another demon, dressed the same as the first, though this one's skin was red. "Just fix whatever the commotion is and . . ."
This new demon was apparently not as observant as his partner; only now did it notice Kyojin standing high above them. While the demon seemed nonplussed at this sight, he did not seem any more afraid than his companion.
"Oh, an enforcer is here," the red demon said calmly. He turned to the blue one. "Why didn't you just tell me?"
The blue one folded his arms. "I shouldn't have had to tell ya, Mez. He's only the size of three houses. I thought you might have noticed him on your own."
"Are you calling me unobservant?" the red demon countered. "That's sure big talk coming from you!"
"Oh, is it now? Well, I . . ."
Kyojin watched this spectacle with utter bemusement. He had never before seen two creatures argue. Most were too busy staring at him to have any gall whatsoever to carry on a conversation that did not involve him in his presence. He could not hear all of the words that the demons were speaking, but he could make out some exaggerated arm movements. Kyojin almost laughed at the spectacle. But as amusing as this sight was, he was on a mission that may very well entail smashing something. It was very important.
"Silence," he spoke in an even tone, knowing that he did not need to raise his voice; it easily carried over those of the two demons. They looked at him as if they had forgotten that he was there. "I said that I have a question. I expect an answer or I might have to smash you."
The two demons gave each other a sort of annoyed look, and the red one spoke up first. "Well, what's your question, then? We're busy demons, you know!"
"I am looking for two escaped souls," Kyojin began, though he did not like the red demon's tone. "They are very tiny creatures, even tinier than you. One with much hair and one with none. Tell me where they are."
"Look pal, if we knew where –"
"Shut up, Goz! Hold it!" The red demon covered the blue one's mouth with one hand. After giving the blue one a sharp look, it glanced up at him again. "Yeah, yeah. We've seen them. Weeks ago. Long gone by now."
Kyojin frowned. While he was not extremely intelligent, he did know that the orders to capture the two escaped souls would be relayed to all branches of Otherworld. Including these two demons. If they had seen the fugitives and not captured them, then they could be in for a heap of trouble. "I suppose that you could not handle them, and that is why they are still at large."
The blue demon pried the red one's hand off his mouth, and spoke up, "Hey, it's not that we couldn't handle them. They just got lucky, that's all! If we – Ouch! Mez!"
The red demon had jabbed an elbow into his companion's gut. "Shut up Goz! What are you trying to do, get us fired? We'll be history if this reaches Lord Enma!"
Kyojin frowned at the two little creatures before him. So they did not do their jobs. That was an unforgivable sin in his eyes. Not that Kyojin was fully intending to completely obey his orders; he was going to do what he was told to some extent and capture the fugitive souls. But seeing as they had given him so much trouble already, he was ready to smash those souls to bits whether he got his permission from Lord Enma or not.
"You are worthless little creatures," he said at last. The two demons looked up at him, worried, but not panicking. "I should smash you, but I still have a job to do. Unlike you, I will do it."
With that, he began to walk again, purposefully just missing stepping on the two demons as he passed. He may well tell Lord Enma about their disobedience. Maybe he would be rewarded with the assignment of smashing them. How satisfying that would be. A smile tugged on his lips as he continued forward.
But before long, he decided that it would probably be best to go at this in a run. His targets were weeks ahead of him, wherever they were headed, and he need to make up for the intervening distance. With his ground-eating strides, he should be able to make up that weeks' worth of distance in a few hours.
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"I wish that I could tell you more," Kuririn said apologetically, hanging his head a bit. "I'm afraid that we only met for that one time."
"Now, now, that's okay, son. It improves on what I had before."
While that was true, Kuririn felt bad. Just as always, he came up short when someone was counting on him. He could only seem to manage partial success no matter how hard he tried. And it was always his own fault, too. He could have known more about Gohan Senior. All that time that Kuririn had spent with Goku, he could have talked to the Saiyajin about his adoptive grandfather more. Goku was not uncomfortable about the subject; oftentimes, he would mention the old man, and a wistful, happy smirk would come to his face. A memory that seemed to give him serene peace as those of his grandfather did were certainly a good place to dwell. Yes, he should have asked. Should have asked a hundred questions so that he could have been prepared for this moment.
"I guess so, but I still feel bad," he continued. "I can't help you get the rest of your memory back."
Gohan Senior patted him on the back. "I already told you not to worry about it, son. Who knows? With the little jogs that you've given me, perhaps I'll be able to remember everything in time. Provided that I don't end up back in relegation, that is."
Kuririn laughed half heartedly. That was the other thing that bothered him. His whole plan to have his Judgement sped up could very well end up backfiring on him. He should have expected this – his plans usually did backfire – but he had just wanted it so much . . .
Now, they were wanted fugitives, heading straight for the judge that would condemn them. Or at least condemn him. Maybe he could get Gohan Senior off the hook, considering that he had knocked the old man out to get him to come. He could argue that Gohan Senior had been under duress. That could work, and maybe he would get the fate that would originally have been afforded to him.
Kuririn himself on the other hand . . . Well, he'd likely screwed up his chances of going anywhere good, all because of his impatience. He could wind up in some terrible place like the Ironic Punishment division, or straight to . . . Well, here, considering that this was Hell. And maybe he would be stripped of his body to boot. And maybe they would actually just decide to suck his soul away entirely, through the use of some giant evil vacuum, wiping him out of existence entirely. . . Or maybe . . .
Good Kami, if he were still alive he would have scared himself to death by now! It was always worst-case scenario for him, except when Goku was around. Or at least until Goku demonstrated that he could handle things.
That brought his thoughts back to Nameksei once more. He'd been thinking about it a lot in the past few weeks, wondering just what had become of his friends. In all likelihood, they'd bee dead for a while now, and had probably been sent up to Heaven. So not only did he potentially screw up his own fate, he virtually guaranteed that he would never see his friends again for the rest of eternity. Who did he have down here? Vegeta? Kuririn shuddered. There was an unpleasant thought. Though he had felt sad at the Saiyajin prince's death – there had just been an overriding sense of pointlessness to it that had gotten to him somehow – he did not exactly want to meet up with the man again. Knowing his temper, he would probably want to . . .
Kuririn shook his head. There he went with worst-case scenario stuff again. He really need to get his head on straight, and convince himself that while something terrible was certainly going to happen to him for this, it likely would not be quite as terrible as he thought. He hoped, anyway. Though his hopes often . . .
He would have cut himself off again, but something did it for him. He had not noticed it at first, but now he recognized the feeling of the ground trembling underneath him, just a bit.
But that was not what made his head shoot up in worry. No, a trembling ground he could deal with; it was the ki signature that went along with it that bothered him. It was powerful, not by far the most powerful that he had ever felt – this level of strength was laughable compared to Frieza – but it would be enough to give him trouble if it caught up to them.
"Do you feel that, son?" Gohan Senior asked. "Something is coming our way, and I don't think that it's friendly."
Kuririn blinked for a few seconds in disbelief. Somehow, it had not occurred to him that Gohan Senior would know how to sense ki. He supposed that he should not have been surprised; the old man had once been a student of Muten Roshi, after all, but it was a slight surprise nonetheless. He had been so locked in protective mode that he had forgotten that Gohan Senior was unlike the other people he had protected – most of them, anyway – in that he actually knew a thing or two about how to take care of himself.
"No, it doesn't. I think our best bet is to get outta here!"
Without waiting for a reply, Kuririn hoisted Gohan Senior over his shoulder, and took off into the air. The direction did not matter, as long as they got a way from that large approaching ki.
Gohan Senior put one hand on his head to hold his hat in place. "This is certainly a nice usage of ki, son!" he shouted over the wind that was surely in his ears. "Though I don't see why you didn't just do this from the start."
Despite the air of desperation around them, Kuririn could not help but smile and add a little levity to the situation. "What you think I was going to carry you the whole way to Judgement? Do you want me to break my back?"
Gohan Senior just chuckled a bit. "Maybe I did at first, considering how you got me to come along with you on this fool quest."
And so the lighter mood continued in spite of the fact that they were being pursued. After all, the ki was strong, but it was not really all that fast. Kuririn was sure that he could easily out fly it. He was sure that it would be far, far behind them in a matter of mere moments. He was sure that . . .
Why in the world was he ever sure of anything?
He felt more than heard or saw the attack that came, a gigantic fist slammed into the ground just beneath them, fully embedding itself in the earth. Rocks sprayed upward, nearly striking Kuririn in the chest and knocking Gohan Senior from his hands, but he managed to evade them, and his grip held firm. They were in real trouble now.
"Kuririn, watch out!"
Gohan Senior's voice came at the perfect time, and Kuririn looked back just at the precise moment to see a monstrous foot bearing down upon them. He quickly and nimbly dodged to the side, but was caught unawares by another foot descended toward the spot he had just dodged to. There was not as much time to evade this strike, and though he managed to mostly get out of the way, the outside edge of the foot caught him in the back.
Kuririn's flight was derailed, and he instinctively tossed Gohan Senior away from him in order for to keep himself from landing on and possibly injuring the old man. Kuririn, for his part, tumbled to the ground which was trembling under the impact of the giant feet.
But the fall was not enough to injure him – he had endured drops from greater heights with little or no damage – and he was up on his feet almost instantly. His head snapped up to get a view of their attacker. And his gaze went up, and up, and up . . .
Geez, as if he didn't feel small enough around normal-sized people.
Unsurprisingly, considering the size of the limbs that had attacked them, the figure was a giant. Several stories high, easily, a good seventy feet tall. Other than that, it looked rather humanoid, with yellowed skin and red slitted eyes. Two large fangs protruded from under its lips, as though the creature were some sort of relative to a sabre-toothed tiger. And those hands and feet that head nearly crushed them contained fingers and toes tipped with fearsome looking claws.
Kuririn swallowed. This just was not his day.
CHAPTER SEVEN: Apprehension
Never ever before had he had a job that had taken this long. For weeks now, he had been wandering around Hell, trying to find his two targets and had met with no success at all. It never occurred to him that they would be anywhere else; the afterlife was a big place, but the easiest route to and from anywhere was often straight through Hell. Surely the targets could not have gone any other way.
Kyojin was starting to wonder if his two targets had somehow managed to make themselves invisible so that they might hide from him. Hiding from him was a good idea, of sorts. Or it would be until he found them. Then, he would just smash them to bits with or without Lord Enma's position. No creatures small enough to fit on his tiniest finger were going to outwit him. Not he, Kyojin, the greatest of the Otherworld enforcers.
But what a waste this was, of his talents. Maybe he should not have even been assigned this job. If the targets were so small, then he could easily miss them in a crowd. He needed to see details. He could not just smash everything in sight, much as he might want to. Doing that would bring great retribution form the Grand Kai. And he had already suffered that once; he had no desire to do so again.
But, he decided, as he paused to look around at the surrounding landscape. In the near distance, he could see something that actually rose to a decent height. One of those silly rides that the souls enjoyed partaking of. But maybe it was time to ask again for information from the caretakers down here. If they did not know, he could always just smash them like he had done with all of the others.
And so over to the rides he walked, shaking the ground with his strides as always, a warning to all those at his destination. A warning to stand clear and prepare for his arrival. And to pray that they did not incur his wrath. Wise behaviour, for he imagined that nobody appreciated getting smashed. Which was part of the fun of it.
Souls scattered in his wake as he approached the rides. A smell, and a pleasing one at that, wafted into his huge nostrils, and he bent down to pick up one of the small buildings that were sitting just in front of his feet. A soul fled from this building as he lifted it, flying toward the ground with great haste. Carefully, Kyojin took a sniff and determined that the pleasing scent indeed had come from there. It was that delicious stuff that the souls called cotton candy. Thoughtlessly, he popped the whole building into his mouth, crunching down on it happily. At least those tiny creatures knew how to do something right.
"Hey, what's all the ruckus here?"
The voice was small, though everything was small to Kyojin, and he looked down at his feet to see a blue demon rushing up to meet him. This demon was bigger than the others, wide shouldered, and Kyojin assumed that he was quite upset form the tone of his voice; from his height, he could not see the demon's face.
Recognition seemed to come from the demon a moment later. "Oh, hold on here. Kyojin right?"
Kyojin nodded. "Yes, that is me. I have a question. You will answer it."
"Only if I can, pal."
Hmm. How interesting. This creature did not appear to be afraid of him at all. Nearly every living or deceased thing that he encountered feared him. While the change of pace was intriguing, he was not sure whether he liked it or not. He enjoyed being feared, and when something veered from what one enjoyed, it was generally not a good thing.
He opened his mouth to voice his question, but another one stopped him.
"Goz, what are you doing up there?" called out an angry voice. Stomping up the hill came another demon, dressed the same as the first, though this one's skin was red. "Just fix whatever the commotion is and . . ."
This new demon was apparently not as observant as his partner; only now did it notice Kyojin standing high above them. While the demon seemed nonplussed at this sight, he did not seem any more afraid than his companion.
"Oh, an enforcer is here," the red demon said calmly. He turned to the blue one. "Why didn't you just tell me?"
The blue one folded his arms. "I shouldn't have had to tell ya, Mez. He's only the size of three houses. I thought you might have noticed him on your own."
"Are you calling me unobservant?" the red demon countered. "That's sure big talk coming from you!"
"Oh, is it now? Well, I . . ."
Kyojin watched this spectacle with utter bemusement. He had never before seen two creatures argue. Most were too busy staring at him to have any gall whatsoever to carry on a conversation that did not involve him in his presence. He could not hear all of the words that the demons were speaking, but he could make out some exaggerated arm movements. Kyojin almost laughed at the spectacle. But as amusing as this sight was, he was on a mission that may very well entail smashing something. It was very important.
"Silence," he spoke in an even tone, knowing that he did not need to raise his voice; it easily carried over those of the two demons. They looked at him as if they had forgotten that he was there. "I said that I have a question. I expect an answer or I might have to smash you."
The two demons gave each other a sort of annoyed look, and the red one spoke up first. "Well, what's your question, then? We're busy demons, you know!"
"I am looking for two escaped souls," Kyojin began, though he did not like the red demon's tone. "They are very tiny creatures, even tinier than you. One with much hair and one with none. Tell me where they are."
"Look pal, if we knew where –"
"Shut up, Goz! Hold it!" The red demon covered the blue one's mouth with one hand. After giving the blue one a sharp look, it glanced up at him again. "Yeah, yeah. We've seen them. Weeks ago. Long gone by now."
Kyojin frowned. While he was not extremely intelligent, he did know that the orders to capture the two escaped souls would be relayed to all branches of Otherworld. Including these two demons. If they had seen the fugitives and not captured them, then they could be in for a heap of trouble. "I suppose that you could not handle them, and that is why they are still at large."
The blue demon pried the red one's hand off his mouth, and spoke up, "Hey, it's not that we couldn't handle them. They just got lucky, that's all! If we – Ouch! Mez!"
The red demon had jabbed an elbow into his companion's gut. "Shut up Goz! What are you trying to do, get us fired? We'll be history if this reaches Lord Enma!"
Kyojin frowned at the two little creatures before him. So they did not do their jobs. That was an unforgivable sin in his eyes. Not that Kyojin was fully intending to completely obey his orders; he was going to do what he was told to some extent and capture the fugitive souls. But seeing as they had given him so much trouble already, he was ready to smash those souls to bits whether he got his permission from Lord Enma or not.
"You are worthless little creatures," he said at last. The two demons looked up at him, worried, but not panicking. "I should smash you, but I still have a job to do. Unlike you, I will do it."
With that, he began to walk again, purposefully just missing stepping on the two demons as he passed. He may well tell Lord Enma about their disobedience. Maybe he would be rewarded with the assignment of smashing them. How satisfying that would be. A smile tugged on his lips as he continued forward.
But before long, he decided that it would probably be best to go at this in a run. His targets were weeks ahead of him, wherever they were headed, and he need to make up for the intervening distance. With his ground-eating strides, he should be able to make up that weeks' worth of distance in a few hours.
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"I wish that I could tell you more," Kuririn said apologetically, hanging his head a bit. "I'm afraid that we only met for that one time."
"Now, now, that's okay, son. It improves on what I had before."
While that was true, Kuririn felt bad. Just as always, he came up short when someone was counting on him. He could only seem to manage partial success no matter how hard he tried. And it was always his own fault, too. He could have known more about Gohan Senior. All that time that Kuririn had spent with Goku, he could have talked to the Saiyajin about his adoptive grandfather more. Goku was not uncomfortable about the subject; oftentimes, he would mention the old man, and a wistful, happy smirk would come to his face. A memory that seemed to give him serene peace as those of his grandfather did were certainly a good place to dwell. Yes, he should have asked. Should have asked a hundred questions so that he could have been prepared for this moment.
"I guess so, but I still feel bad," he continued. "I can't help you get the rest of your memory back."
Gohan Senior patted him on the back. "I already told you not to worry about it, son. Who knows? With the little jogs that you've given me, perhaps I'll be able to remember everything in time. Provided that I don't end up back in relegation, that is."
Kuririn laughed half heartedly. That was the other thing that bothered him. His whole plan to have his Judgement sped up could very well end up backfiring on him. He should have expected this – his plans usually did backfire – but he had just wanted it so much . . .
Now, they were wanted fugitives, heading straight for the judge that would condemn them. Or at least condemn him. Maybe he could get Gohan Senior off the hook, considering that he had knocked the old man out to get him to come. He could argue that Gohan Senior had been under duress. That could work, and maybe he would get the fate that would originally have been afforded to him.
Kuririn himself on the other hand . . . Well, he'd likely screwed up his chances of going anywhere good, all because of his impatience. He could wind up in some terrible place like the Ironic Punishment division, or straight to . . . Well, here, considering that this was Hell. And maybe he would be stripped of his body to boot. And maybe they would actually just decide to suck his soul away entirely, through the use of some giant evil vacuum, wiping him out of existence entirely. . . Or maybe . . .
Good Kami, if he were still alive he would have scared himself to death by now! It was always worst-case scenario for him, except when Goku was around. Or at least until Goku demonstrated that he could handle things.
That brought his thoughts back to Nameksei once more. He'd been thinking about it a lot in the past few weeks, wondering just what had become of his friends. In all likelihood, they'd bee dead for a while now, and had probably been sent up to Heaven. So not only did he potentially screw up his own fate, he virtually guaranteed that he would never see his friends again for the rest of eternity. Who did he have down here? Vegeta? Kuririn shuddered. There was an unpleasant thought. Though he had felt sad at the Saiyajin prince's death – there had just been an overriding sense of pointlessness to it that had gotten to him somehow – he did not exactly want to meet up with the man again. Knowing his temper, he would probably want to . . .
Kuririn shook his head. There he went with worst-case scenario stuff again. He really need to get his head on straight, and convince himself that while something terrible was certainly going to happen to him for this, it likely would not be quite as terrible as he thought. He hoped, anyway. Though his hopes often . . .
He would have cut himself off again, but something did it for him. He had not noticed it at first, but now he recognized the feeling of the ground trembling underneath him, just a bit.
But that was not what made his head shoot up in worry. No, a trembling ground he could deal with; it was the ki signature that went along with it that bothered him. It was powerful, not by far the most powerful that he had ever felt – this level of strength was laughable compared to Frieza – but it would be enough to give him trouble if it caught up to them.
"Do you feel that, son?" Gohan Senior asked. "Something is coming our way, and I don't think that it's friendly."
Kuririn blinked for a few seconds in disbelief. Somehow, it had not occurred to him that Gohan Senior would know how to sense ki. He supposed that he should not have been surprised; the old man had once been a student of Muten Roshi, after all, but it was a slight surprise nonetheless. He had been so locked in protective mode that he had forgotten that Gohan Senior was unlike the other people he had protected – most of them, anyway – in that he actually knew a thing or two about how to take care of himself.
"No, it doesn't. I think our best bet is to get outta here!"
Without waiting for a reply, Kuririn hoisted Gohan Senior over his shoulder, and took off into the air. The direction did not matter, as long as they got a way from that large approaching ki.
Gohan Senior put one hand on his head to hold his hat in place. "This is certainly a nice usage of ki, son!" he shouted over the wind that was surely in his ears. "Though I don't see why you didn't just do this from the start."
Despite the air of desperation around them, Kuririn could not help but smile and add a little levity to the situation. "What you think I was going to carry you the whole way to Judgement? Do you want me to break my back?"
Gohan Senior just chuckled a bit. "Maybe I did at first, considering how you got me to come along with you on this fool quest."
And so the lighter mood continued in spite of the fact that they were being pursued. After all, the ki was strong, but it was not really all that fast. Kuririn was sure that he could easily out fly it. He was sure that it would be far, far behind them in a matter of mere moments. He was sure that . . .
Why in the world was he ever sure of anything?
He felt more than heard or saw the attack that came, a gigantic fist slammed into the ground just beneath them, fully embedding itself in the earth. Rocks sprayed upward, nearly striking Kuririn in the chest and knocking Gohan Senior from his hands, but he managed to evade them, and his grip held firm. They were in real trouble now.
"Kuririn, watch out!"
Gohan Senior's voice came at the perfect time, and Kuririn looked back just at the precise moment to see a monstrous foot bearing down upon them. He quickly and nimbly dodged to the side, but was caught unawares by another foot descended toward the spot he had just dodged to. There was not as much time to evade this strike, and though he managed to mostly get out of the way, the outside edge of the foot caught him in the back.
Kuririn's flight was derailed, and he instinctively tossed Gohan Senior away from him in order for to keep himself from landing on and possibly injuring the old man. Kuririn, for his part, tumbled to the ground which was trembling under the impact of the giant feet.
But the fall was not enough to injure him – he had endured drops from greater heights with little or no damage – and he was up on his feet almost instantly. His head snapped up to get a view of their attacker. And his gaze went up, and up, and up . . .
Geez, as if he didn't feel small enough around normal-sized people.
Unsurprisingly, considering the size of the limbs that had attacked them, the figure was a giant. Several stories high, easily, a good seventy feet tall. Other than that, it looked rather humanoid, with yellowed skin and red slitted eyes. Two large fangs protruded from under its lips, as though the creature were some sort of relative to a sabre-toothed tiger. And those hands and feet that head nearly crushed them contained fingers and toes tipped with fearsome looking claws.
Kuririn swallowed. This just was not his day.