Chapter Twenty-Seven
I'm sorry I kept you waiting for this chapter. Life is getting in the way LOL. Well, the main battle is about to happen! Look forward to it. For now, enjoy this chapter.
Once again, Misao was in the presence of Asura. When they were in the room, Asura was lying in his bed and laughing hysterically with his hand covering his face.
Misao stood in the middle of the room, her hands still tied behind her by Justin, watching the Kishin have an episode with himself. Her heart raced seeing him like this. His laugh echoed though her and taunted her. It was the same laugh she heard when he took her hostage and taunted her father. She shed a single tear, then took a deep breath so the rest of her tears wouldn't overflow.
Asura finally gathered himself and stared immediately at Misao with a wide grin. When he turned to her, Misao took in a deep breath and puffed up her chest, showing her courage and strength. "You must be happy that your friends have come for you." He mocked her with a chuckle. "That confidence of yours will wither once your weapon is killed by my minions."
"Blood and the others won't die as easily as you think." Misao said back. "They'll put up a fight…and they will win."
"Justin, release her." He ordered.
"By your orders, Lord Asura." Justin's shackle hands turned back to regular hands after he released Misao.
When she was free, Misao twisted her wrists around to remove any strain on them. She looked up and Asura was right there in front of her. "Ahh!" She quickly backed away from him while clenching her chest. Misao let out a small gasp when she felt a pulsing come from her chest, causing her to kneel down in slight agony. 'The orb…it's taking in Asura's madness.'
"Hehehe…my madness is taking effect." He said as he stood over her. "The orb has absorbed a large quantity of it. Can you feel it being purified?"
"This…is far from…purification." Misao grunted. "Your madness…is…tainting it."
"Madness is the true healing. It will remove the pain of everyone's imagination and fear."
Misao prepared to say something, but she became overwhelmed with pain as her chest pulsated faster and faster with the madness. She attempted to purify the orb with her own soul wavelength, but she noticed that her wavelength was weak. 'I…I can't cast it away. Not even temporarily.'
"You can't get rid of my energy, Misao." Asura said to her as he laughed at Misao's weakness. "My power has grown exponentially. Plus, the orb has already accepted my power and is enhancing it, which is causing you extreme pain as its shield."
"No…I won't let…the orb be taken by you." It got to the point where it began to get harder and harder for her to speak. Every time she did, the pain grew worse and worse. "I don't want to be here anymore…" Tears fell from Misao's eyes. She clenched her chest to the point where she pushed her hands into it to try and make the agony go away. But no matter what, the pain remained.
Asura stopped laughing, and picked Misao up from the floor. She had no strength to fight against him as he carried her to the bed and laid her across it. He sat her up against the piles of pillows. In front of Misao, across from the bed were monitors that showed every part of the fortress.
One of monitors on the far left side showed Blood and the others walking down a long hallway until they came up to a door. Misao kept the hope that Blood would in fact rescue her. She had to admit to herself that in her current condition, she couldn't fight back; she didn't have the strength to fight Asura or his minions. She hated feeling helpless. She felt just like a child again, not being able to help her father or any of her friends from her village.
"Looks like your friends are about to meet up with Giriko. Let's see how they fair against him." Asura sat further down on the bed, near the center. He had his legs pulled up against his chest, like a little boy watching his favorite morning cartoon.
"Everyone stop." Stein raised his hand to make everyone else stop in their tracks. He gripped his death scythe in his hand and held it at his side. "Be on your guard. We're not alone."
Torches on the wall lit themselves to reveal Giriko leaning against the wall on the other side of the room with a sharp grin on his face. "It's about time you got here. I was getting bored waiting for you."
"You…You're the one who forced Misao to fight against us in Canada!" Blood stepped forward in anger.
Giriko laughed. "You got that right, buddy! We gave you such an ass-kicking back then! It was thrilling!" He laughed manically as his bloodlust grew more and more. His eyes practically bulged out of his head. "The way you held back, while she was forced to fight with everything she had to kill you! I wanted to see you covered in blood and guts!" Chainsaw blades appeared on Giriko's legs. He pulled on the chains to use as weapons, as well as a means of dodging attacks. "Let's see your full power as a weapon!"
"You'll regret messing with me!" Blood began to approach Giriko.
Stein grabbed his arm, stopping him from taking another step. "Blood, don't let him get in your head." He said to Blood. "We have to stick with our plan."
"I'm sorry, professor." Blood removed Stein's hand and continued towards Giriko. "But I cannot let this pass. This will be a battle of weapons. Remember that my clan were weapons who could fight without meisters to wield them. So I am more than capable of fighting him on my own. For my meister…and companion."
Stein didn't argue with Blood, especially after seeing his soul wavelength spike tremendously. His soul character surrounded him as he stopped a few feet away from Giriko.
Blood transformed his fingers into spear-like claws, then protruded scythe blades from his forearms and prepared for battle.
"So, I get to see your true power?" Giriko stuck his tongue out at Blood while cackling. "This'll be fun! Especially since Lord Asura and your little princess are watching us as we speak. Meaning she'll get to watch me cut you to bloody ribbons!" His chains revved up and he skated towards Blood, ready to take his head off.
Blood braced himself, barely catching his chains in time. He ducked under the chains and managed to kick Giriko in the stomach, sending him flying backwards. He watched with enraged eyes as Giriko used his chains to stop himself from flying back into the wall. Blood didn't wait for Giriko to prepare an attack. He sprung forward, changing his right hand into a scythe and prepared to kill Giriko with one attack.
Before Blood could get any closer, Giriko used his chains to skate up the wall and onto the ceiling. "You won't get any more lucky hits on me!" Giriko threw his chains down on Blood just as he fell from the ceiling. The chains surrounded Blood and quickly wrapped themselves around him. "Try to get out of this one! I'll love seeing Misao's face shatter after I kill you!"
"Blood, we'll help you!" Maka exclaimed as she was about to run into the fight.
"NO!" Blood screamed with authority. "None of you are to interfere in this fight!" He turned his attention back to Giriko. "Don't think this is going to hold me!" Blood transformed into his full weapon form, slipping through the chains, then quickly transformed back into a human and escaped Giriko's death trap.
"You can't escape me that easily!" Giriko vanished from sight.
Blood stood in the center of the room, trying to sense Giriko's presence. But it was masked rather well, in Blood's opinion. He took one step backwards and then felt multiple blades shoot through his chest. He coughed up gallons of blood as he looked down to see Giriko's gloved hands surrounded by chainsaw blades that were spinning. "Damn…you…"
"You know what the best part of being a weapon is? We're extremely hard to kill. We can take immense damage and still fight with everything we have." Giriko made the chains on his arms run at full speed as he pulled it out of Blood's chest. Blood fell to his knees, holding his wound to try and stop the blood from dripping out of him. "Your wound, for example, is the equivalent of a flesh wound. Well…it would've been if I hadn't done some damage to your insides. Now you can really live up to your name…Blood." Giriko kicked Blood in the face, knocking him over.
"You're not going to last long, Blood! We're helping you!" Kid exclaimed.
"I said…stay out of this!" Blood exclaimed back. "I…can fight…my own battles. I…I can…beat him."
"You're saying that in your condition?" Giriko laughed and laughed at how pathetic Blood looked. "You're still trying to play the knight-in-shining-armor role for your little meister?" He continued kicking Blood around across the floor.
Every time Blood scooted across the floor, his open wound splattered blood everywhere. More blood came from his mouth than his wound.
Giriko finally wrapped his chainsaw blades around Blood's neck and arms. He stood behind Blood and held his chains tightly, pulling ever so slightly to prolong Blood's pain. "She's listening and watching us right now. If you have any last words to say to her, better say 'em quickly before I rip you apart!"
The blades pierced his flesh, causing him to grunt in extreme pain. "I'm…not…giving up. Misao! Wait for me! I will rescue you!" Blood used all of his strength and power to protrude long, sharp arrowheads from every part of his body, shattering some of the chains that wrapped around him. He was able to get his hands free and use more of his force to break all of Giriko's chains before knocking him on his back.
Blood hovered over Giriko and balled up his fists. Once they did, he transformed them into two large arrowheads. He looked down at Giriko with rage. He was going to threaten him, but instead, he took action and punched Giriko in the stomach. Giriko grunted in agony as he watched Blood pierce his stomach.
"What you're feeling right now, is exactly how Misao is feeling right now. It's the same feeling she felt when Asura murdered her father and village, and when you forced her to lure innocent people to have their souls taken! All of those times, you've looked past her pain for your own amusement! Now that you're feeling it, you can't ignore it can you?" Blood dug the arrow deeper into Giriko's stomach, and then pointed the other one at his throat.
Giriko stared at Blood with guiltless eyes. He mustered what little strength he had left in order to laugh at Blood. "You can…torture me all you want. But…I…I won't ever have regrets of what…I did."
Blood dug his arrow fist into Giriko's stomach further in and watched him cough up more blood. "Where is the door out of this room!?"
"Even…if I tell you…you won't save her. Asura can't be stopped. This whole mission…will be a waste…of time!"
Blood finally delivered the final blow to Giriko, stabbing him in the throat. He continued stabbing Giriko repeatedly to make sure he was good and dead. Even when Giriko stopped moving and breathing, Blood continued to assault him out of anger.
Stein and Spirit pulled him away from the bloodied corpse. "It's over, Blood. He's dead." Stein said.
Blood broke out of Stein's and Spirit's grip. He stared at the bloody mess at his feet, feeling that he has gotten part of his revenge. The rest lied ahead. "Let's keep moving. We need to find a way out of here."
"We found it!" Maka said as she pushed down a single brick, which triggered a door to open.
"Blood, will you be alright if we continue?" Stein asked as Spirit turned back into a scythe.
He stared at the professor with a blank expression. He then looked down at his hands and body, seeing all of the cuts and bruises that covered him. He placed his hand over the open wound in his stomach. "My energy is a bit low, but it's not a big deal." Blood prepared to follow the others through the door, but was stopped by Stein once again. He sighed and said, "I know you think my decision was stupid. But I really don't care what you think. He had to pay for making Misao suffer. Asura's going to get it much worse."
"I agree that you were extremely reckless...but you did a good job." Stein let go of Blood, and then pulled out some bandages, and wrapped up Blood's stomach to stop the bleeding. "You're much more powerful than I thought."
"It has to be because of his clan." Spirit said. "You said your clan were demon weapons who could fight without meisters, right? You had some killer moves out there that I don't think any other weapon would think about doing."
"Most of my skills are thanks to Master Isame."
"He must have been a great teacher." Stein said.
"He was. I owe him and Misao my life. Which is why I've sworn my loyalty to both of them. We don't have time for idol talk. Misao is waiting for us." Blood walked a little bit ahead of Stein, focusing on the seemingly endless path that he hoped would lead him to where Misao was. 'I can sense you, Misao. I'm almost there.'
Please R&R!