NOTE: Writing during science class during a volcano and earthquake movie.....which I should be watching since I have a test tomorrow on this stuff, but still....it's a mountain that spits out lava, right? Whatever....anyway, this is the last official chapter of the fanfic, however, there will be an epilogue, so no fear, my dearest lovelies, you will have your reward.... ^_^ Enjoy the final chapter, epilogue comes soon after, and then, THE END!

-Momo

PS: It's hard to concentrate when the narrator keeps talking....I apologize if the first part is choppy, but I cannot wait to do this!!!! I have such inspiration!!!! -Mo

PPS: Lava looks like squishy candy or something.... o-o

THE FALL OF ADAM

He had killed them all. He had killed his parents....he had killed his brothers and sisters, he had killed his in-laws. He had killed them all. Family was nothing to him, and they had condemned him! He had told them his beloved had been restored, reborn! And they condemned him! In a fit of blind rage, he crushed their skeletons inside their bodies, one by one, with his new found powers. The ones that had gotten away didn't matter. He felt it, felt the corrupting flow course through his veins. Such power. He saw through the eyes of his ancestor now. Such knowledge! Such power....

The opposing enemy...the one he was to fight. A sensitive one, he presumed, one that would shudder at the fact that he had done such things. Good. Let them fear him. Easy for him to claim his victory.

He stood on the train. It would take him to his first location in the Shaman Fight. He held Eliza's skeleton close to his body under his coat. Someone sat next to him. A young man, no older than sixteen, he presumed. He was dressed in the Gothik style of clothing. Must've thought he looked scary. He looked up at Faust.

"This train goes to Tokyo, right?" he said with an American accent. Faust's eyes caught his, and he stared deeply into them.

"Yes," he said quietly. "It does..."

"You...You're in the Shaman Fight?"

"How can you tell?" Talking to this boy made him self-conscious about his ecessively heavy German accent.

"This train is specified for contestants only, man," the boy said. "Furthermore, it's only for Bone Junkies."

"Bone Junkies?"

"Oh....you older folk call them Necromancers...." he said with a careless wave of his hand. "Plus, I can see your spirit medium. There's a hole in his head."

Faust's eyes twitched.

"Her..." he said, looking lovingly into his coat and gently taking out the skeleton. "Perhaps you need some air, eh, Eliza my love?"

"She....her name's Eliza?" the boy probed. Faust glared at the boy and caressed the skull tenderly.

"Yes," he said, holding the skull to his face. "She is beautiful, isn't she?"

"Sure....for a heap of bones, she looks kinda nice...."

Faust's eyes widened. A heap of bones?! Did this infidel...this child....just call his beloved a heap of bones?!!

"H....How dare you..." he seethed. "How dare you...how dare you demote my darling Eliza!" he yelled, standing suddenly. The faces on the train turned to the two. His eyes, large, cold, bloodshot blue, stared widely at the boy. He looked down. The boy was well built, healthy, but when faced with Faust's enourmous height and maniacal gaze, he shook in fear.

"H-Hey man, I didn't mean--"

"She is no mere heap of bones! She is no doll! No puppet! How dare you!!" Faust raged, reaching for the boy's collar and lifting him up out of his seat.

"H-H-Hey!! P-Put me down! I'm sorry, man! I didn't know it meant that m--"

A loud crackling sound was heard throughout the enclosed place. Blood splattered. In his hands, Faust held the remains of what was the boy, now unidentifiable. A semi-blob of left over flesh and crushed bone. He dropped the thing and stepped over it, his face and hands covered in blood. He walked through the doors and off the train. People looked at him. He didn't care. Behind him, the skeletal frame of Frankie, now renamed Frankensteiny, scuttled past people and trotted behind Faust.

The rain began to fall. They wouldn't call the police. It's the Shaman Fight. The Patch were in charge, no one else. He had killed the boy. He deserved it! Calling his darling Eliza a...oh, he couldn't even say it! What a horrid thing. He walked over to the desk at the far end, where the Shamans were all signing in. He slammed his hands on the desk.

"Where am I supposed to go for my first round?" he asked. The Patch looked at him oddly and then said.

"Do you need an Oracle Pager?"

"Yes."

"Ok. Name please."

"Dr. Faust VIII," he said, glaring at the man as he shuffled around and finally retrieved the small device.

"Put this on your wrist, it'll tell you all you need to know."

"Good."

He snatched the Pager and put it on, walked hurriedly through the crowd. He typed in his name and the address came up on the little screen.

"Excellent...." he breathed. The fight was designated at a cemetery not too far from his current location. He smiled wide and laughed a bit.

"Could this be any more perfect?" he asked Frankensteiny. "Oh, what a great success I've made.....and soon to be greater....I promise....."

The rain poured down. His opponent was a normal shaman spirit medium, no older than twenty-three, perhaps. Faust had the upper hand. A graveyard was not the best pace to fight a "Bone Junky", as the American boy had said.

"Well, I guess we should introduce ourselves," the man said. "I am Higasaki Nigaya. My spirit medium are these three swords, which I use to summon one of the most powerful and legendary ninja santoryu masters in all Japan, The Black Death!"

"The Black Death? As in the plague?" Faust muttered. "What a stupid name for a warrior...."

"Well, what's your spirit's name, tough guy?" Nigaya said defensively.

"My spirit's name? I think you mean my spirit medium," Faust said with a smile, reaching into his coat. He slowly lifted the skeleton and let it hang from his forearm, bound by chains forever to him.

"This is my beloved Eliza," he said, bringing the skeleton close to him. "My partner in medicinal menace and undying love!" Nigaya snorted.

"Love?" he said. "You're kidding."

"Say what you wish, I will not lose this battle," Faust said, his eye narrowed. The Oracle pagers beeped as the proctor from the Patch arrived.

"Alright, begin!" the proctor said. Faust engaged his mana, raising his hands.

"Hear me, those who sleep in the Earth!" he said under his breath in German. "Hear my command and rise!"

The earth rumbled. Slowly, from the depths of the underground, thousands of skeletons crawled from their slumber, creeping their way out of the mud. Faust threw his hands in the air and the rest flew from their graves. What stood between him and his opponent was an army of cold, dead bones. Nigaya swallowed, but shook his head.

"Ok! Time to go!" he said. He integrated his spirit with the swords and held them between his fingers in front of him. "The Black Death, oversoul!" The swords flashed with a ray of seemingly darkened light and lengthened, thin but long. Smoke lingered from the hilts. A hissing sound escaped the weapons as Nigaya raised them above his head and swung downward at a few bone soldiers in his path.

"Ha! These bones are nothing! They can't even withstand the weakest of swordplay!" Nigaya bragged, mowing down the skeletons one by one. Faust just stood, waiting. As Nigaya grew closer, he still did not move.

"What's the matter, old man?!" Nigaya cried. "Too frail to fight?! You did look a little scrawny to--"

Nigaya's verbal attacks were cut short by a powerful hit to the small of his back. He fell forward, gawking.

"W-What...." he panted, turning and wincing in pain. Eliza stood behind him, skeleton with glowing eyes, piercing into his, holding an enlarged razor.

"I would appreciate it," Faust said. "If you stopped making fun of me."

Nigaya grunted and barely dodged a swing of Eliza's razor blade. He scrambled to his feet just in time to block and push another attack away from him using his swords. He stood back, en garde, and glared at Faust.

"So it's on," he said. Faust smiled.

"I suppose," he said, shrugging. "But not for much longer, I know."

"Don't be so sure!" Nigaya exclaimed. He seemed to focus his mana on the weapons he held, and the sword length grew shorter, shrinking in length to about two feet long each.

"Interesting," Faust commented. Nigaya crouched low. He scanned the domain quickly with his eyes and then vanished. Faust raised his eyebrows.

"Where did he go...?" he said to himself. "Eliza, stay on your toes, love."

The skeleton pushed itself up on the platform of it's foot and looked at Faust. He smiled.

"I love you," he muttered.

"How cute," came Nigaya's whisper in Faust's ear. Before he had time to gasp, Faust felt cold metal on his skin and in a split second, the damage had been done.

All that could be heard was a blood curdling scream, echoing for miles.

Faust lay, semi-hunched over in a puddle blood. He trembled madly and moaned in pain. Nigaya stood back and stared at what had been committed. Not two feet away from the necromancer was a peeled layer of skin which had been perfectly ripped from his torso. The bloody talon-like swords in Nigaya's hands knew the damage they had caused. Faust's breath came strained. He brought a shaking hand to his mouth and pulled off his glove with his teeth. His unsteady fingers touched gently to his now bared muscle, and he clenched his teeth in pain. Never had he felt such pain as this. He did not, however, let his mind wander. He knew he had to win, even if it cost him more than just a couple layers of skin.

But that didn't mean he wasn't pissed.

He raised his trembling hand and willed his lover to find and bring him a fresh corpse while he sent the rest of his bone soldiers to full on attack Nigaya without warning. Nigaya was taken aback by his sudden attack, and stumbled about, trying to regain his stature. Meanwhile, Eliza had found a body. He was a young looking man, no older than twenty-five or so, and he seemed relatively "fresh", must have been buried at least a day ago. Faust looked at the body that was dropped in front of him. All of the skin was discoloured. Blue, and deep purple, as in cease of blood flow.

"Frozen to death," he said. "He was frozen to death...."

Not wanting nor caring about being picky, he began to operate on himself. He pulled out a syringe and eased the needle into his arm. After a short time, the pain dulled, the morphine already taking affect. He then drew his scalpel and slowly began to cut away at the man's skin. Within minutes, he had stitched the new layers of skin onto his own bloodied torso. He was not worried about the infections he might receive or the fact that this corpse most likely did not have his own blood type, and thus, he stood, after a maximum of only 6 minutes, torso and all.

By this time, Nigaya had mowed down and re-mowed all of the skeletons over and over again. He stood in a pile of bones, panting and staring up, aghast, at the newly restored necromancer.

"You...." he said, shuddering. "You're not going to like this....."

Unleashing his full mana, Faust took control of Nigaya's inner skeleton and dragged him straight in front of him. He took his jaw in his hand.

"Oh, look at you...." he whispered. "Surprised? Frightened? Perhaps a bit of both....how pitiful...."

He raised him high up in the air, over his head, and grabbed his razor from Eliza.

"Let me show you why I went to medical school."

He raised his blade and rested it on Nigaya's right shoulder.

"The human body can still function without all four limbs. Life is still possible. Therefore, as an example...." he said. He pulled it back and with great force, he swung down at his arm, severing it completely. It fell to the side, and Nigaya screamed loudly in pain. He did the same with his legs and his other arm, and let the half-living "body" drop. Nigaya writhed in pain.

"Unfortunately, you'll bleed to death quite quickly due to the damage..." he said. "However, there are things I can do in that time."

He leaned over to him and raised his scalpel. Very gently, he inserted the blade in Nigaya's Adam's Apple and began to cut it out slowly. Once that task was complete, he reached his hand into his throat via the hole in it and pulled the man's tongue back out through it.

"Sicilian necktie," he muttered. "Never thought it would work like this...." He laughed maniacally and with his scalpel cut out both eyes. He then grabbed the gurgling carcass and, using Nigaya's long black hair, tied it to a tree. With that, he turned, wiped his bloody hands on his coat, and walked away, leaving the overseer to gape and Eliza's skeleton to follow.

"One down," Faust murmured as he walked along the street, the rain starting to let up a little bit. "Only a step closer, but nonetheless, a large step. The extent of my power was not even scratched upon its surface." He caressed Eliza's skull within his jacket. He looked down next to him to find Frankensteiny trotting along behind.

"Come now, little one," he said to the dead dog. "We've much more to do. Just one victory does not make one truly victorious...isn't that right, my darling?" He brought the skull out from under his jacket and stared at it fondly. The hole was still there, there in her head.

The hole where the gunshot first hit.

The hole in the head of his lover, where all her life spilled out onto the carpet in the living room.

The hole that cracked her skull and killed her.

The hole that cracked his heart and killed him.

The hole that started the long trip down the road to insanity, to redemption, to condemnation, to Hell.

"For the Lord shall rise up as in Mount Perazim,

He shall be wroth as in the Valley of Gibeon,

that He may do His work,

His strange work,

and bring to pass His act."

Isaiah 28:21

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THE END