Chapter Eighteen – Bright Moth Queen
Phalène had sent Sakuya Mutou to defend her classmates inside the school building and Kaworu Jounouchi to investigate this so-called "back-up" inside the building. That was the kind of girl Reiko Motomiya was. She would take care of everything on her own if it suited her needs, and her need right now was to make sure that SHE will be the one to solely kill Sakuya Mutou. The one in her way was a fellow Homunculus that descended from the moon and onto Earth with her, the tenth Tetsujin Juusan Homunculus known now known as Tora. Phalène had remembered that she went by a different name back then, but that was the past. This is the present, and Tora is presently in her way.
"So that boy," the seductive-looking Homunculus grinned, "you've been giving off this malicious aura towards him. In fact, you looked like you really wanted to kill him. What's so special about him?"
Tora simply raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Hmph. Wouldn't YOU like to know, traitor."
So much for starting a conversation, Phalène thought, but she didn't end there. "Who are your comrades inside my old school? Are they also 'descendants' like us?"
Tora gave the same response. "Wouldn't YOU like to know."
It was frustrating to hear it the first time, but even more annoying the second time in the row. "Then how about this? Why don't you tell me about your leader, this 'Kami-sama' you Tetsujin Juusan love to talk about. I'm just DYING to know." There was a hint of malice in her voice.
Tora's eyes glared, and she bore her fangs. Her Fu Jow Pai was ready to rip the flesh off of this annoying woman. "Wouldn't YOU like to know."
At those words, the metallic tigers jumped at Phalène from all sides. Their nails stuck out like blades, ripping through the fog in their way. But Phalène didn't flinch; she spread out her glowing wings, and the tigers were stuck in place. "What?!" Tora gasped, unable to grasp the scene before here. Phalène grinned widely as the tigers were pushed back by an unknown and unseen force. The tigers skidded along the school grounds, blowing the mist around them away from the impact. "What…what is that?! What did you do?!"
"Ah ah ah," the girl chuckled as she wagged her finger. "You know what they say. 'A woman never reveals her secrets.' But let me grace you with the beauty that is my Buso Renkin, bestowed upon me by my one true master!" The wings spread out wide, glowing in radiant colors. The tails of the wings just hovered over the ground. Phalène posed with her left hand on her hip and her right arm extended outward while her right leg was raised up and bent into the left. "Named by the greatest Homunculus in existence, the man who has surpassed all life on Earth with his greatness, Papillon-sama! The man who is the very definition of beauty and refined into a god! For he has named my Buso Renkin of Plasma the 'Aurora Borealis!'
It was true that the wings gave off the glow of the northern lights themselves. And aptly named as such, these wings were made of plasma. Phalène controls the electromagnetism that the plasma gives off to attract or repel her off the ground to give her the ability of flight. How it performs offensively and defensively would be defined by this very battle.
Tora was bewildered by this flamboyant and haughty explanation that she had no words to counter. But knowing that the weapon was that of plasma, she already knew how to counter. Rather, she knew how to fight back. "You know what they say," she clicked her tongue, "if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself."
Whenever Tora moved, time felt slow to her. That was the limit of her speed. Her strength and speed rivaled that of her former colleague, Kabuto, and as she stated before, it was merely her Buso Renkin ability that set her and the late XI apart. But even alone, she was not to be underestimated because she knew how to fight. Her background permitted it. She is a refined warrior, unlike Kabuto or Kuwagata, and Phalène would do well not to underestimate her. She sped towards the enemy girl and bore her left claw. She then swung her claw across Phalène's stomach.
"What?!" she gasped as she tried to move back in time. Her flesh was torn along with her garments that wrapped around her stomach. She placed her hand over the wound; it was a light wound, but that's not what shook her up. Phalène glared at her opponent and said, "A weaponized Buso Renkin is often of a metallic alloy. Papillon tells me that my Buso Renkin is ideal against these weapons because they're often made from iron." She narrowed her eyes and stood up straight. "They say you Tetsujin Juusan have Kakuganes made from the legendary Orichalcum. You must be pretty confident in your Buso Renkin material to get close while knowing what my Buso Renkin is."
"You talk too much," Tora sighed, licking the blood off her claw. "But if you want to know, our Kakuganes are indeed made from Orichalcum. But Orichalcum would still be magnetized to a certain degree. As such, it is only the Kakuganes that are made from Orichalcum. A true soldier knows to find ways around all sorts of obstacles like electromagnets. As such, my Fu Jow Pai is made of…"
"Copper…" Coming to this realization, Phalène realized that fighting head on with this enemy would be suicide. Her electromagnetism would not work on a copper weapon, much less a copper coin. In this case, she'd have to fight long distance. But how? She had overheard the fight between this Homunculus and the other two Warriors, so she had an idea of how they were made. The ones that would be a problem are the ones made from copper. In this thick fog made by the Warrior on the roof, she would not be able to tell which are made from copper at a glance. There were some torn pieces of the tigers from the previous fight on the ground.
That's when she had an idea.
"Have you said your prayers, traitor?" Tora asked, bearing her left claw. Phalène knew that the right claw made these abominations, but what did the left claw do? So far, Tora had only attacked with it. Looking at the tips of the right claw, Phalène deduced that the right claw was only sharp on the edges, but blunt at the tips. That made it seem less deadly, but there was still Tora's fighting ability and Phalène's lack of. "I'm going to end your life now. All traitors must die!"
Tora raised her left hand and held her covered thumb and middle fingers together. She rubbed them as if she were snapping, but there was instead a loud screeching sound, metal grinding against metal. The screech was followed by loud roars as brown, actually copper, tigers pounced through the fog.
Like in a trance, Phalène gracefully dodged the first tiger as she spun towards a second. She stopped at her stiletto heel and bowed low enough that the second tiger had somehow soared over her. And as she turned to the third, she lifted her right foot, kicking the tiger under the chin before somersaulting backwards with a follow up kick. She gracefully landed and spun once more and slammed her left extended foot into the side of a fourth copper tiger's face.
Phalène understood what she was up against and took no time in performing the countermeasures. Unlike her opponent, the drones lacked intelligence to perform any sort of strategy. To these tigers at the command of the pack leader, it was to kill or be killed. Phalène's blows were strong enough to take on hunks of metal, but not enough to hurt them.
"Is dancing all you have left?" Tora sneered. "Have you gone delusional? Lost in your high over the traitor of all traitors?!"
Calling Papillon a traitor was a capital offense to Phalène. She had stopped dancing and stood oddly still in a clear center of the field. She was covered in fog, but she could tell that she was definitely surrounded. "Don't misunderstand me, you brutish worm," she replied. "Everything I do has significant meaning. Despite my appearance and personality, I was actually an honor student during my time at this wretched school." With a grin, she widened her wings. They hummed and glowed, and the metal shrapnel from the previously destroyed tiger drones shook in the ground. Slowly they ascended into the air. Phalène lifted her right hand; her fingers were positioned with her index, ring, and pinky fingers outward while the long nail of her middle finger rested against the thumb. She moved her hand slightly to the left and flicked her middle finger.
A piece of shrapnel that had floated near her left wing sparked and shot out like a bullet. There was a loud explosion that blew apart the fog near Tora's position. The pHomunculus looked at the source of the explosion that had blown apart the fog; a copper tiger had been blown apart by the force of this shrapnel. Sparks of electricity could be seen from where the copper tiger once stood. "No!" she gasped.
"I have to thank those two pests for giving me some ammo," Phalène chuckled and repositioned her hand once more. "Nothing feels better than…the sound of a railgun." She shot another piece shrapnel in the opposite direction. A copper tiger and two other tigers behind it were blown apart as well. These pieces of shrapnel were electromagnetically charged by the plasma wings, and Phalène was controlling the force of the repellant at max. With the force of a railgun at this Homunculus' disposal, Tora knew that messing around was not an option.
"You bitch!" she growled. This sorry excuse for a Homunculus was laced with perfume, so finding her scent wasn't hard. She ordered her tigers to attack at that particular direction, and all the tigers converged towards that singular point.
"Aren't you rather desperate?" Phalène jeered and charged all the multitudes of shrapnel at her sides. As soon as the tigers came into view, she launched everything she had into full burst. It was like a shotgun in all of the forward direction. The tigers, copper and non-copper, blew apart. Tora's army was gone.
But not Tora.
The Chinese-looking Homunculus had launched her attack behind her army as she tore through the shrapnel that hadn't hit anything. With her speed, she was able to dodge most. But one tore through her bandanna, revealing her long black hair as she zipped through her shattered army. With a single thrust, Tora pierced through what remained of Phalène's stomach. The "Bright Moth Queen" coughed up blood as she field her lower abdomen gutted. The blood splattered onto Tora's bare white shoulder. "Y-You…would sacrifice your own personal army…to get to me…"
Tora glared Phalène and grabbed her neck with her right hand, the edge of her blades against the side of her neck. "Don't talk to me about sacrificing my army," she hissed. Her pupil had grew into long slits over her yellow irises. "You, who used our fellow Homunculi as your personal toys as you went about your merry way, have no right to tell me how I handle my subordinates! And in the end, you would betray us and help the Alchemy Warriors that hunt us down?!"
Her grip on Phalène's neck grew tighter. She kept her left hand lodged in her abdominal would so that she was immobile. "Hmph…since it won't matter to you anyway when you're dead, I'll answer some of your questions."
"One of my partners is your former subordinate, Akira Ishida, when you hid in this school. After he was killed by Sakuya Mutou, Kami-sama gathered his remains and bathed them in a liquid made from the pKakugane."
"A liquid…made from Orichalcum?" It hurt to talk, even to breathe.
"The pKakugane regenerated his body and made him one of us. It was because Kami-sama willed it that your subordinate came back to life."
"Then…it is possible to revive the dead with these crimson Kakuganes?"
"Hardly. A standard Kakugane can give life back to a human by acting as a surrogate heart. But pKakugane cannot revive someone who is already dead. Orichalcum is a timeless metal. With the powers of alchemy, it can reverse the effect of death, as if they were never dead in the first place. In short, thanks to the Tetsujin Juusan, Akira Ishida never died. It's not reviving the dead, but removing death from the equation."
Tora then licked her lips. "But enough talk. I've blabbered on long enough, which is unbefitting for a soldier like me. So I'm gonna kill you now. Any last words?"
Blood trickled down Phalène's lips as she smirked. "Just two." Her wings hummed, and the shrapnel from the destroyed tigers shook on the dirt ground. "Think fast."
Tora looked behind her and saw the shrapnel. But because she had left her left claw stuck inside of Phalène's stomach, she couldn't move in time. The shrapnel shook and flew towards the two of them. Normally, they would fly towards Phalène because of her electromagnetism set to "attract". But Tora was in the way, and she was the perfect shield for the job.
"AAAAAAAAAAGHHHH!"
In a painful roar, the entirety of Tora's back, from head to toe, was covered in shrapnel. Blood trickled down from the protruding pieces of metal from all of her wounds. Her Buso Renkin had deactivated and fell onto the dirt ground in its crimson Kakugane form, the Roman Numeral X on it. The Homunculus was definitely too weak to hold on now.
Phalène pushed herself off of Tora's bare hand and placed her own over the gaping wound. It definitely hurt, even if she was a Homunculus herself. She looked up at Tora, who was standing extremely still; if she were to move even once, it would bring her tremendous pain. She smiled sadistically as she walked towards the stationary Homunculus. "It hurts, doesn't it?" she asked and licked Tora's cheek. She picked up a piece of iron shrapnel on the ground and held it in her delicate hands.
"You told me that you once endured a lot in your past life," Phalène said, "and that would be the basis of your strength. You say you hate traitors, but by clinging to the past, you've betrayed your future. Even as a Homunculus, you can still live the way you want to." She took a few steps back with a twisted grin on her red lips. She turned towards Tora, the shrapnel floating by her right wing. "But I don't like women who cling to the past. They're so…ugly. Take a chapter from Mutou's life. She isn't burdened by the loss of her father, but rather strengthened by it. I hate people who cling to the past, but I hate idealistically strong people even more." She held up her right hand, her middle finger in flicking position. "So I became strong for my own sake. Not for anyone else's. I became strong to stand on Papillon-sama's level. Hmph. I guess that makes me what I hate." She grinned wildly.
"But I don't hate it. Because it makes me more beautiful than you. And I just…absolutely…hate…ugly people."
The electrically-charged shrapnel shot through Tora's chest. The rest of her body tore apart after. Her widened eyes watched as all they saw was fog. The fog that clouded her heart, the fog called the past. Her body slowly disintegrated from the wounds until she was no more.
Phalène looked down at the crimson Kakugane and slowly walked towards it. She picked it up with a huff. "Papillon-sama wants this, but…" The X faded, and the Kakugane crumbled into dust. "It's too late now, huh?" She looked at the school as she deactivated her Buso Renkin. Her Kakugane serial number was XLIX (49). "But Papillon-sama also wanted me to assist the…child of Mutou. Hmph, I'd rather kill her than help her. But I'd do anything for Papillon-sama…" She looked around and saw something peculiar.
She was standing at the center of the grounds, so why can she clearly see the school gates? Was the fog actually lifting? Wasn't the fog controlled by an Alchemist Warrior above the school? Even the blue morning sky was coming into view. Phalène looked up at the roof with narrowed eyes. "Something isn't right…if I had strength left, I'd check it out, but…"
She knelt down and held her Kakugane to her would; it began to spark. "I guess I have no choice but to leave it to them…"
Meanwhile, Akira Ishida, now known as Sasori, held his pKakugane labeled IX (9) against Sakuya's Great Gaia. He smirked as he slowly pushed her Buso Renkin back. "Why…why are you still alive?!" Sakuya exclaimed.
Sasori looked at Ouka, who was shocked to hear Sakuya's reaction. "To get revenge on you, of course," he growled and pushed Sakuya back.
The teen stumbled against her tall blonde friend, trying to keep her balance with her oversized Buso Renkin. "I've come from Hell and back to repay what you've done to me. I will destroy you and everything you hold dear! That is why I've joined the Tetsujin Juusan!" He thend held out his pKakugane.
"Buso Renkin!"