Disclaimer: This chapter contains a lot of canon-typical violence
Chapter 10. Super Mess
Angel gritted his teeth fiercely as a grimace of pain became more and more visible on his face. The wing, now tainted with the vermilion red of his own blood, was about to give way. Some feathers had flown to their feet, broken and soiled, like smeared paint brushes. They sank into the dense, scarlet patches on the dusty floor, soaking more and more. He would not be able to hold the position much longer, especially as he continued to resist against the Love Devil's cruel machete.
They were in clear disadvantage defending themselves like that; they had to do everything they could to regain ground.
Aki gripped his katana firmly with both hands. He cleaved the air above Angel's wing, aiming at Mihon with all the strength in his arms. She raised her other forearm, also transformed into a blade, to parry. The new clash between the iron of their weapons made her step back about ten centimetres, freeing Angel's wounded wing who, in response, swung it violently, knocking the enemy away. He then swiftly drew it back to him, exhaling a laboured, aching breath.
Aki, finally free to move, hurled himself at the Love Devil, trying to give Angel a moment's truce.
He raised the white tip of his katana to the sky, charging the attack. With precision, he severed Ai's armed forearm, from which dense streams of black blood began to gush. The dark blade of the hacksaw stopped screeching against the elegant blade of Angel's scythe and fell. It clattered to the ground, followed by the wet sound of the mutilated limb. Unconcerned by the situation, Ai reached down to retrieve her arm. She grabbed it, swung it upwards, attempting to wound him with the machete. Aki managed to block at the last second, anticipating the attack and blocking it from above. The fierce attack stopped and Aki caught that chance to disengage and move to a safe distance. The Devil brought her severed arm close to the stump, the two parts attached in mere moments without any problem. Then she sank her hand into her chest, pulling out another machete, twin to the other. She rocked back and forth on herself for a few moments, her long hair swaying as she followed the movement of her body, and then she lunged at Aki again, swinging the two weapons at him. The expression on her face was unchanged, her eyes still narrowed and her lips turned downwards, pursed in a slight pout.
The Devil Hunter, spitting curses from his mouth, tried to counter the blows as much as he could, shielding and dodging them, but the rage was mighty and fast. The recoils his blade received propagated violently in his arms and shoulders, causing them to tremble and waver, pushing him away from the rest of the group, despite all the strength he was employing to resist.
Goddamn, Ai was damn strong with those inhuman whacks of hers. She was a pure flail: fierce, fast and precise; a single successful slash would have seriously wounded him. He gritted his teeth, felt his forehead beading with sweat, barely hissed from the effort; he had to keep his concentration to the maximum.
[Tokyo Ghoul OST - Symphonie]
Not far from him, Angel, who had immediately got up, was engaging in a face-to-face against the Deception fiend in a frenzied criss-crossing of their weapons, which blazed noisily; while Power and Denji continued to confront Shion. The enemy was slamming her whips on the ground, her wounds beginning to heal.
"We're going to take you and your fucking music down!" shouted Denji, waving a chainsaw in the air, the 'vrrrrm' echoed through the wrecked hall.
Denji and Power were ready to resume their attack. The girl stood up quickly and Denji pushed her against the Whip Hybrid with another spin, giving her more centrifugal force. On the other hand, snickering and with his tongue hanging out of his mask, bloodthirsty, he had darted at the creature, dragging and screeching his heavy chainsaws across the floor.
Shion swung several bundles of thin whips at him, which Denji managed to avoid. The number continued to grow, almost covering his whole vision. He waved one of the roaring chainsaw-arms upwards and swung it downwards again, to make his way through the vine-like whips. Arriving now a little over a metre from Shion, he brought his arms back to normal, bringing them close to his torso. He charged a powerful bounce with his leg, launching himself high into the air. He also began to juggle in midair. He turned his legs into chainsaws and, with a triple turn on himself, gave two powerful consecutive kicks to the remaining whips. He completely swept the view in front of him, laughing with gusto. The last, most powerful kick was directed at Shion, or rather, between her shoulder and neck. Power had also arrived. From her wrists she had created two small scythes, intending to hit Shion with another spinning attack. Her eyes lit up with excitement and her lips stretched into a long smile: the blade had almost reached one side of the enemies' body at the same time as Denji's chainsaw was on the other.
"DIE! GYAHAH!" Power shrieked at the top of her lungs, "Denji, let's finish her off!"
"Not so fast... you guys want to end our game already?" replied seriously the Hybrid. More whips were generated from below. They wrapped tightly around Power's elbow and Denji's ankle, which was lifted higher in the air by one foot. He continued to wield the chainsaws in agitation and flailing around; he hoped to be able to strike his enemy and free himself, but achieved the opposite effect. Shion continued to block him with the whips, also squeezing his other ankle and wrists, until he was completely immobilised. Slowly she was pulling him more and more, spreading his legs and arms. Denji felt his muscles tense with brutality and pain, it felt like they were about to break. He didn't know if it was because of the strength of the grip around his limbs or the power with which she was about to tear him apart.
Power, on the other hand, yelped: the whip around her arm had buckled so viciously that it violently crushed her elbow joint. Shion bent it behind her back. The bones creaked loudly and ominously: something must have broken, tearing a deep cry of desperate pain from the girl's throat. Shion twisted it even more, amused, until the forearm was pulled away from Power completely.
"'This is for earlier, kiddo! Now it's your little friend's turn," she announced confidently. She wiggled the lollipop stick up and down between her sharp teeth.
"POWER!" called out Denji worriedly, seeing her fall and tumble ruefully to the ground. He had to do something fast! But he couldn't move. A stabbing pain made its way from his shoulder. He saw the right side of his torso tearing, as if it were a piece of paper; it kept getting more and more splotched with a bright red colour. He began to spurt blood out in abundant amounts and scream in pain.
Power continued ranting, tears in her eyes, cursing and rolling in the dust.
She got up slowly, leaning on the only arm she had left. Mascara had run down all over her cheeks, smearing them. Her gaze was menacing and angry, looking like a beast ready to maul its prey.
"'You bitch! Human bastard bitch, I'll kill you!"
She sprinted quickly, with what little strength she had left. She avoided further lashes, nimbly, bringing herself behind Shion. She quickly raised her wounded arm, soaking part of the hybrid's back with her own blood. "I am Power, the mighty Blood Devil! Now you will see what that means," she declared hysterically. A spike of blood about ten centimetres thick was generated from the blood thrown, piercing Shion at the level of the shoulder blade.
It stretched until it rejoined both Power's wounded forearm and the mutilated one still in the grips of the enemy's whips.
"What a massive... asshole," commented Shion in a pained hiss. She squeezed her eyes shut in pain.
"And that's it!" exclaimed Power excitedly, with a toothy grin on her face. She snapped her fingers; her forearm flew back and pierced the frustrated hybrid, increasing the size and severity of the wound, causing it to spit out streams of blood between the sharp teeth of the demon mask. Once his hand had also passed through that wound, Power's arm returned to its place, healing. She tried to start charging again, even though she was almost exhausted.
Shion was not deterred and in one decisive blow, split Denji's abdomen open. The boy grunted in excruciating pain, the sound of tearing tissue and muscle filled his ears violently. It hurt like hell. He was losing so much blood; he was falling to the ground roaring, like a cascade. Chainsaw Man's mask melted away, revealing again his true face, now pale and almost lifeless. Blood flowed copiously from his mouth and nose, he fumbled futilely for air, but on his tongue he could only taste the stinging iron. His eyes were turned blank, almost ending up backwards. With a whip, Shion grabbed his intestine, which was now exposed to the air because of the deep wound.
He let go of all the grips on his limbs. Denji began to fall dead weight. His bowels stretched. What little blood he still had in his body dispersed through the air in small particles or droplets, which splattered on the ground with an obscene noise.
"DENJII!"
Denji with the last glimmer of life before he died, brought his fingers to the chainsaw lanyard. He grasped the hook. He tried to pull it. But before he could, Shion wiggled him around, aiming at Power.
The girl saw him coming at her. She ducked just in time to dodge him. Shion then raised him again up into the air. He flew over the heads of Aki and Angel, who were continuing to fight with the Love Devil and the Deception fiend, until Denji crashed into the DJ station and the stalls.
The music stopped.
"Any request from one of my clients... is an order," she taunted him, then launching herself at him, continuing to regenerate.
Power began to run in their direction.
She had to catch up and help him before it was too late.
To say he was worried was complete crap. Aki was fucking worried; Denji and Power's heartbreaking screams had made his blood run cold. He'd wanted to turn around to check on them, but getting distracted for a single second would have been fatal, and he could have been even less helpful dead than he was at that moment. So he had swallowed the worry, or at least he was trying to, attempting to concentrate as much as he could against his enemy, who did not give him a moment of respite. His arms became heavier with every blow his katana took. His reflexes became slower and slower. He had to change strategy: he couldn't keep deflecting and parrying blows like that; he was completely at Ai's mercy, he was playing her game.
He barely avoided the slash directed at his right side and blocked the consecutive one to his left. The two blades, so different, clashed with a dissonant screech. The force with which Ai held her stance, against his katana, made him flinch, scuffing the soles of his shoes on the ground.
Ai raised her machetes again.
He had to shuffle his actions so that Love could not predict his next moves.
It was while he was searching for a possible opening that he glimpsed, out of the corner of his eye, Denji flying above his head. He looked up for just an instant, for a millisecond. He saw him, snapped in two and dripping with blood; some of it even fell on him, like a light rainfall, wetting his hair and hands. He felt a drop roll down his cheek. It was heavy. It came down, slowly wetting his cheekbone, leaving a dirty sulcus on his face.
He shivered.
He gulped at the disgusting scene he had seen, at the blood that was staining him, but it was useless because his mouth was so dry. Anxiety and worry were swallowing him whole.
Denji.
He could not lose him too; that was his only thought at that moment.
But that instant, that millisecond, in which he had taken his eyes away from his enemy, was lethal to him.
In his mind, the Future Devil sent him a vision.
Aki brought his gaze back to Ai, extremely worried. The Devil's face changed expression for the first time: her lips were pulled into a slight smile.
She swung her right machete in a second, as Aki had seen her do in his vision. He stopped her with his katana, pushing it away, challenged. His heart was pumping like crazy. Then Ai swung the other one. Aki saw it almost in slow motion, as it came ominously close to his neck. It was going to hit him. In that split second he had to react, he brought one foot back. He shifted his weight.
He managed to move just enough out of the way.
The machete came and striked him. He felt the serrated blades sink into the flesh of his chest at the level of his collarbone. With one sharp blow, the blade ran across part of his chest. The spikes had snatched at his skin, at his tissues and ripped them away along with his clothes, leaving the fresh, red flesh exposed. Blood exploded with a spurt from the wound. Aki gasped in excruciating pain.
Finally the blade was away from his body. He had managed to avoid the worst: that blow was aimed at his neck and if it had hit, as in the vision, he would have died.
It hurt like hell. The stinging, tearing pain was knocking the breath out of his lungs. His body heat was flowing away towards the wound, which felt burning hot.
His legs trembled.
He could not hold the position anymore, he slumped slightly on himself but somehow managed to keep himself upright. His grip on the katana was still firm. The breaths were heavy and painful.
[BEHELIT [slowed to perfection+extended]]
He felt the ground beneath his feet tremble. A faint reddish light lit up. He looked down in agitation.
A huge stylised eye opened wide beneath his feet. It had concentric pupils that occupied the entire sclera, alternating between red and black. They moved slowly outwards, rising from the centre, in an almost macabre dance. All were in the shape of a heart.
"Hayakawa Aki..." the eye thundered in an abysmal, demonic voice "by the power granted to me by you foolish humans and the underworld, I, Love, will execute you. Your time has come."
Aki felt the blood falling, leaking, from the deep wound, still aching, still too painful. It was leaking in streams that crashed with a gruesome splorch on the filthy floor. His forehead was growing cold and wet with sweat.
Ai had brought the two machetes into the air, colliding them. They were merging into a large bubble.
She lowered it.
She brought her index and middle finger in front of it and with her other hand began to draw a long black katana from the dense sphere.
"Ai, are we doing it? Now?" was Deception's voice, she ended her sentence with a loud, excited laugh. Aki's pupils sprang swiftly to where the fiend had spoken: she was emerging from the ground and had passed over Angel, who had just hit the ground with his scythe, missing her.
Angel had turned around, realising what had just happened.
He widened his eyes, realising what was going to happen.
Mihon was running towards Aki. Ai was waiting for her; to hit him together.
"AKII!"
Angel's cry was exasperated and even his face was distraught with worry. He began to run after Mihon as well. He ran like he had never done before, panting from exhaustion and speed. A speed that Aki did not think was possible for Angel.
Suddenly, however, everything seemed to slow down once again before his eyes, the blows being prepared, Angel running. On the other side of the room, Denji lifeless, Shion catching up to him, hounded by Power a few metres away.
Mihon was loading her blow... and laughed, again, showing him all her sharp teeth and her mouth rippled with all the scars from the burns. The two blades were going to hit him. It seemed impossible to him that it could happen otherwise.
"Do you know why you died, human? Because you failed my test. No human can succeed, no human knows what Love means."
With that sentence, both Ai's black katana and Mihon's white blade, side by side, shot out.
Angel arrived. He gave himself a push with his legs and jumped up. He spread his wings wide. His face was serious; Aki thought he had never seen him so focused.
He wielded his scythe with both hands and swung it. It seemed so light, as if Angel was making no effort at all. It landed precisely on Mihon's neck and cut him cleanly, extending the movement with one hand.
He hit with a graceful beauty and seraphic cruelty that Aki was sure belonged only to the biblical paintings Makima jealously cherished. Angel plucked the fiend's head with his scythe, as one plucks a flower from a garden. And then, as one blows on a dandelion, scattering away all the pollen, the blood dispersed into the air in spurts.
Mihon's head rolled on the ground. It reached Ai's foot, tapping it gently. The eyes were vitreous, now lifeless. The legs of the decapitated body gave way and she fell to the ground, raising a pile of dust that scattered in the air.
Angel landed again, barely crouching to release all his energy to the ground and not injure himself with the impact.
Behind them, now that the view was clear, Aki saw Power running directly toward Ai, who had lowered her weapon, which melted away, and was slowly turning toward Mihon's lifeless head. Power again generated from her wrist a spear, and charged it. She flexed her arm muscles nimbly, as if they were a lash, and swung it as if it were a javelin, toward her enemy's forehead. Once again the weapon stuck in the devil's head, motionless, but Power remedied. She reached fast, a blood-colored hammer came out of her palm. With all the strength she had, she slammed the end of the spear. Ai's head recoiled back and forth. A trickle of rotten blood formed from underneath the bright red hammer, flowing viscously over her nose and then lips. The spear departed again, splashing away from Ai's head. It reached the back of the room where Shion was left alone with Denji, and struck her in the shoulder. Power had aimed well.
"How are you?" asked Angel worriedly, approaching Aki.
What question was that? How could he possibly be?
"I'm ... fine," he lied, barely straightening his back.
Angel looked at him doubtfully; his lie was obvious.
The truth, which they both knew, was that the wound was serious. It burned like hell; in some moments he felt almost as if he was going to faint.
The only thing he could hope for was that the adrenaline would start flowing through his veins as soon as possible, so that he could fight again... just a little more, just enough to take out Love as well.
Aki raised his gaze from the floor, from where the huge eye had just closed its eyelid. He looked at Ai again.
A shiver of fear ran down his spine.
Her eyes were wide: they were the same as the one that had been under his feet, moments before. The expression still indecipherable, but Aki noticed that small bubbles were forming on her arms. Slowly growing larger.
No, he mentally corrected himself. Her skin, her body, made of the blood of everyone she had killed, was boiling up.
Power generated another blade and threw himself at Ai to stab her. She hit her, but it didn't seem to work. Aki immediately noticed that Ai's abdomen was slowly sucking in the weapon, climbing up with her overflowing blood on the blade, engulfing it.
"GET AWAY!"
He leapt forward, anxiously, invoking energies he didn't even know he still had, and cut Power's hand away from that concoction of viscera, with his katana. Then he pulled the girl away from the enemy, pushing her off with the flat of his weapon.
More blood gushed from his wound; he brought one hand to his chest to compress it. Angel grabbed him by the arm, trying to hold him up.
"Can you heal him?" he asked Power nervously.
"Yes, but..."
"Then do it!" Angel ordered her authoritatively, cold. Aki did not know Angel was capable of giving orders like that.
Power approached, shifting her gaze doubtfully between him and Angel. Her face was pale; she must have lost so much blood herself, she would probably be out of the fight after not too long. She could not waste energy helping him; if she did, they would both become useless for the battle, leaving Denji and Angel alone against two enemies... perhaps that was the reason behind her hesitation. They all had to keep giving it their all while it was possible.
"'There's no need, Power, I can do it... go help Denji. He's the one who needs you," he replied, breathing heavily and trying to straighten up, helped by Angel. The girl still looked at him skeptically, ready to argue.
"GO!"
Aki got back on his feet, confident, appealing to all his willpower. He tried not to think of pain, only of his duty. Power, seeing him, no longer hesitated, she sketched him a slight smile and ran to Denji.
"You can't go on like this!" Angel scolded him in annoyance.
"Like what?"
"Playing the tragic hero!"
"I'm not being 'the tragic hero,' we have to kill-"
But he did not even have time to finish the sentence that a scream burst into the air.
[Devilman Crybaby OST Dual Mix "Beautiful Silene" "Night Hawk"]
It was a deep, desperate cry that seemed to blend hundreds of voices, exactly like those that had invaded the nightclub before it collapsed. It was so loud that Aki's eardrums were about to burst; and so powerful that he felt as the sound waves could almost knock him off his feet. He covered his ears with his hands, crouched down, and Angel did the same. His palms were getting wet with a warm liquid.
"DECEPTION!"
Ai had brought her hands to her face, scratching her cheeks, sinking her long nails into skin and flesh, tearing them away. Her regeneration was so fast that she could do it over and over again. The black and red hearts continued to dance frantically in her eyes, from which gushed, copious, dense tears of dark blood. She continued to scream excruciatingly, her voice kept distorting, screeching, becoming higher and higher pitched. Her body kept boiling, writhing on itself. It was getting bigger and bigger.
Those horrendous screams slowly faded away as everyone remained on the ground for shelter.
"MIHON" was the whip hybrid this time. "No, not again..." her voice trembled after seeing her sister's lifeless head. "HOW DARE YOU?!" she thundered and began waving all the whips in the air in bulk.
One of them came swiftly, snaked zigzagging across the floor.
She buckled Angel by one ankle. Aki tried to hold him close, reaching for his hand, but Shion was much quicker and tossed him into the air. She began to wave him around like he was a rag doll. She slammed him left and right; against columns, walls and rubble. She She lifted him into the air and then slammed him over and over again on the ground, against the sharp glass of the strobosphere, in a havoc of blood, saliva and a sinister cacophony of broken bones and voice. Aki watched the scene helplessly.
Angel, Denji, Power...
Everyone around him was having a miserable time. His heart clenched in his chest, in an excruciatingly painful grip, that he felt choking, almost panicking. What could he do? What was he supposed to do?
Think, Aki, think... fuck!
But his mind couldn't put anything together.
"Shion, you're wrong," Love spoke for the first time in a crystalline voice, but twisted in pure madness. With her arms folded under her chest, she raised a hand and moved her index finger slowly from right to left. "It is not the fault of those who protect ... it is the fault of the weak who get protected and then give nothing in return."
The katana was knocked from Aki's hand with a powerful kick. It flew up, whirling; Ai had not approached him, however. The weapon fell into the ground behind the devil's back, jingling.
Mihon's body had crawled up to him, standing up sharply, and had kicked his hand. The corpse was hunched backward but slowly got back on its feet: instead of the head that was still on the ground, there was a copy of Ai's, contracted into an eerie, long smile and with eyes that were barred but white, without irises. The long black hair loose and gathered in the two pigtails was frizzy and touched the ground brushing it. In a second, she knocked him off balance, sweeping him off his feet, and Aki found himself jolted to the ground. The real Ai jumped on him, pinning him down with her weight. Aki tried to move her by either pushing her off with his hands and trying to dislodge her with his legs, but she was really heavy and strong.
"Those like you, human, only have to do one thing, and that is DIE!" she ranted at him so forcefully that she smeared him with saliva. She sank her hand into his thigh again, moving the tulle, and pulled out a black knife. She gripped it and with all the strength in her arm, she crashed it toward him. Aki dodged it just in time, moving his head. The blade impacted against the ground, generating a shock wave and cracks. A few strands of black hair became stuck, preventing Aki from moving further.
"Aki," was Angel's voice, "if you want to survive, you have to kill me."
Ai had changed her appearance again, taking on Angel's. She looked like him in everything: his voice, his stature, his red eyes.
If he had looked better, however, Aki might have noticed that actually, the cut of the eyes was slightly more drooping downward, the hair a duller red, and the halo decidedly too large, drooping, and dim. But he didn't have time to do that; this Angel had another knife clenched in both hands, newly created. He brought it up charging it and lowered it forcefully to the soft skin of his throat. Aki brought both forward, trying to block it. He grabbed Ai's wrists.
He was pushing. He pushed away as much as he could to draw the knife away, but it was useless; Ai's strength was immeasurable. His biceps ached from the immense effort he was making to counter it. Slowly the sharp blade sank deeper and deeper toward his neck.
"If you want to live, defend yourself and kill me!" Ai ranted again, in Angel's voice. "You have already done it once, show me that you are capable, show me your true nature, human. Show me your selfishness, how you are ready to kill those you say you love. You know nothing!"
Aki gritted his teeth, some blood splattered between them, and kept trying to shove the blade away from his neck.
To no avail.
It reached down, to its destination, brushed against his skin and etched it lightly, drawing a gasp directly from Aki's throat. A few drops of blood formed, flowing slowly, boiling on his cold body. Fuck, he was going to die, there was nothing he could do.
He was fucking scared.
"ANSWER ME WHEN I TALK TO YOU!" Ai yelled at him. The fake Angel's face was contracted into a grimace, full of angry wrinkles.
"This is a very bad imitation..."
A powerful kick crashed into 'Angel's' head as Aki saw it fly off, rolling and spinning on itself like a soccer ball. Ai's body was left without strength, as were her arms. Aki lifted her off him and then turned toward the one who had helped him. Angel was standing, trembling. Rivulets of blood gushed from his nose, the sides of his mouth, and his forehead. His wings were battered; one had completely collapsed and the now scarlet feathers touched the floor.
"Angel..."
"Get up," he told him, grabbing Aki by one arm as he yelped in pain and struggling to get him back on his feet, "it's not over yet... Go get the katana back."
Angel lifted one side of his jacket and pulled out a slightly curved knife, identical to the one he had already used. He handed it to him. Aki grabbed it and walked toward his weapon, limping slightly. Ai had already regenerated in the meantime, her head was back in place.
She was standing again, her body was imposing now, much larger than before and much less human. Parts of her skin continued to bubble and were glowing red. She sank her hand into her belly, where her dress was torn, and pulled out a massive, enormous broadsword with one of the sides completely jagged.
Clang; she slammed that heavy blade on the ground. She snickered and launched herself like lightning toward them.
Angel got in the way, blocking her with his scythe, allowing Aki to move freely.
The teeth of Love's weapon caught between Angel's obsidian-colored scythe. He had pointed his feet to the ground, holding his position, but Ai's ferocity made him back away, crawling. They were face to face, very close, separated only by their blades.
"Why are you doing this, Angel Devil? Why are you on the side of the humans? Why are you with him? You are my brother, leave them alone and cooperate with me."
Angel gasped and resolutely managed to parry the blow, knocking the enemy weapon away.
"I am neither with humans nor with devils, I don't care about anything or anyone of you. The only person I care about is the one you are trying to kill. Sorry, but I won't let you!"
Angel cleaved his scythe forward, striking Ai. He carved a shallow cut on her abdomen, from which gushed dense black streams.
"You idiot, fool! You still haven't understood what your human is like, huh? If you want to have fun being a guardian angel for him - that's fine! But you are also nothing but a sparrow, a bird of doom!"
The wound closed again. Ai moved her weapon again and the clash between the two was repeated as before, with the same sparks and screeches. But this time, as Angel was standing up to her, he felt something plunge into his back. A blade.
A stabbing pain hit him just below the lungs, he felt the blood disperse as soon as his flesh was freed. His legs gave way. He held on to the scythe, from which Ai's broadsword escaped and missed him. He fell to his knees. He brought one hand to his mouth and spat blood against his palm, coughing. He turned to see who had done it. Again, the lifeless fiend's body, without any head. Now it was on the ground again.
"Angel...you had been cursed, you should not have been here today, you should have died last time. And your curse now is far worse; you will see him die before your eyes the same way you killed Deception before mine. It is the law of counterpoise. The law of Love, which gives but, above all, takes away."
Angel tried to get back up, unsuccessfully. His arms were trembling, although they were clinging firmly to his scythe. He watched Ai turn her back to him and walk slowly toward Aki. She lashed the air several times with her broadsword. Her pigtails swayed left and right along with her body, which continued to grow larger. It began to change shape. The bloody slime that had generated her was returning to a single mass under her skirt, taking the place of her legs. She moved forward, resembling a victorian lady, leaving a black trail behind her. Her stature doubled. Her face remained unchanged.
"By the power granted me by humans and the underworld" speaking were two voices; Ai's and Abyssal's. The eye opened again under Aki's feet. "I, Love, will execute you!"
[Tokyo Ghoul Root A OST~ Disk2 #8 - Aogiri]
Denji crossed the chainsaws in front of his face, blocking yet another lash from Shion. Their blows were frantic, both of them never sparing themselves. Denji kept cutting the whips coming at him as if he were cutting vines. Shion, on the other hand, kept blocking his movements. Power kept circling the enemy, charging the spear and trying to pierce her, but to no avail. Shion was able to deflect the blows by tangling her whips or simply avoiding them. Even so, Power was proving to be of great support, freeing him from the various enemy grips or simply not allowing Shion to focus fully on him. Just before, it had been thanks to her that Denji had been able to resume fighting.
Denji was in pieces. His battered and cadaverous body, split in two and with all his innards spilled out onto the ground, towered over the sharp, metallic splinters of what remained of the speakers. While Shion was distracted, crashing left and right at the Angel Devil, Power approached. She took the lanyard between her fingers and pulled it vigorously. The roar of the engine resounded in the air.
Denji's eyes suddenly opened wide, the look was alive again, spirited almost. The chainsaw began to sprout from his forehead, spreading blood everywhere, smearing his face. Denji got back on his feet by levering one arm, on his face the mask of Chainsaw man was again molded.
He held out a hand to Power, showing his palm.
"Thanks Powy, I owe you one!"
She soundly crashed her hand into Denji's, high-fiving.
Denji raised the heavy chainsaw into the air and managed to cut off an arm of the whip hybrid, but promptly she caught it with a liana and reattached it. Power, taking advantage of the situation, sank the sharp point of the spear into Shion's back. She continued to thrust until half the length had pierced her. Denji charged another slash. He was about to strike her when Shion gathered all the whips around her in an intricate weave, as if wrapped in a cocoon. She shrank in on herself. The tip of the bud stretched upward and then began to rotate on itself, raising dust from the ground and producing a gentle breeze. Between the vines, Power's spear had also been caught. The spear, in the rotation, snapped and the girl was thrown off.
The bud then reopened, like blooming petals, slamming hard into the ground. Denji barely managed to avoid the attack, being injured. Shion lunged at him. Blood still overflowed from her wound, but she had not removed the spear. She grabbed it with one of his whips and pulled it out, throwing it away on the floor. Again their blows crossed viciously, with arms leaping off and being reattached immediately, and blood spurting everywhere. Shion's movements, however, were slowing down; she seemed to start to suffer from the superhuman effort and the wounds that had been inflicted on her. Denji avoided a direct blow by ducking. With a horizontal motion, his chainsaw sank into Shion's neck, beginning to sever it. The girl let out a stifled groan, spitting blood at him. He arrived with his blade on the other side of her throat, opening her neck in two. Her head began to fall back. Two lianas flew swiftly toward the gazelle horns, grabbing them and pulling her head down, laying it back on the neck. The wound did not regenerate as fast as before, so Shion left his whips in that position.
"Damn you... kid... let's get this done," she sighed harshly in a hoarse voice, spitting out more blood. He threw another whip, lacing it around Denji's neck and starting to crush him. Then another and another, increasing the pressure and the amount of whip around his throat. She lifted him off the ground. Denji was trying to cut them off, but they were so massive he could not saw them all off.
"Once... someone told me I have to learn... to make better use of my chainsaws," he said as he was choking. He modified one of them, breaking the chain. He moved his arm, making it swing up to Shion's forearm, the tips wrapped around the elbow joint. He made his other hand normal again and pulled the chainsaw cord. The chain began to swing back toward the chainsaw blade, cutting and sawing Shion's arm. He maimed him and the arm fell to the ground. All the connected whips weakened, leaving his neck free. With his other chainsaw arm he cut all the others with difficulty. He came back with his feet on the ground.
"But I didn't understand how... then I remembered... that I'm a real master at copying," he finished between coughs. He detached both chains again and wrapped them around Shion's shoulders, blocking her movements and, with his teeth, pulled the lanyard. He popped the chainsaw motor again. Denji was pulled toward Shion forcefully. He pulled his head back and as soon as he got close to her neck he gave an headbutt.
The frontal chainsaw began to sink between Shion's shoulder and neck. Denji felt the vibration of the blades directly in his brain.
"Damn you!" shouted Shion at him. She tried to block his attack. She caught him with a whip from the handle on his head.
"POWER!"
Power was behind Shion. She grabbed onto Shion's horns and began to leverage backwards on her head.
"LET'S GO DENJI, LET'S GO!"
Shion's head began to bend unnaturally backward, the chainsaw advancing into her body with the sinister clatter of the device. The enemy, in a last desperate attempt to defend herself, began frantically moving all the whips, striking them. She kept hurting them with those lashings with inhuman force, but neither of the two, despite the pain, let go. Power finally succeeded in breaking her neck. Shion no longer resisted.
Denji severed her entire upper body diagonally. His chainsaw came from the other side, Shion's upper body slid off her legs, falling to the ground.
Her face returned to normal. It was stark white, lifeless. Between the purple lips there still was the lollipop.
Denji stumbled forward, now without strength. Power caught him in time before he fell, but her legs gave way as well. She had used too much blood. They both fell to the ground with a thud, unable to move any muscle and unable to speak.
He saw the broadsword coming closer and closer to him. He had turned around. The blade had struck him in the neck, cutting him like butter, separating him from his body.
He saw the world turn upside down around him as he flew up, and after those few seconds, when everything had stopped swirling around him and he had landed on the ground; he clearly saw his energy-deprived, dead body, overflowing with living blood, collapse to the ground.
Then darkness.
[Tokyo Ghoul Root A OST~ Disk1 #24 - Auferstehung]
Aki opened his eyes again after the dizziness. He looked at his hands, in one he was holding the katana and in the other the dagger, then lowered his gaze to his legs. Beneath his feet the wide-open eye was watching him. His head was still on his neck. Around him the noises returned. He heard Denji's chainsaw crash against Shion's whips.
That was an imminent future. How could he escape it?
Fear made his legs shake. They were heavy; he didn't even know if he could move them. Sweat dripped from his hair, falling to the ground. The sound of the drops was unbearable; it was like the hand of a clock ticking away the seconds, reminding him that moment was getting closer and closer. His breathing was labored.
He was frightened. Scared was an understatement; he was terrified.
He wanted to scream, but any sound did not even reach his throat; the thought died well before, in his brain. It was a visceral, archaic fear.
He mentally forced himself and turned toward Ai. She was huge, terrifying, she was going to sweep him away completely. The images he had seen in his mind just before returned overpoweringly under his eyelids. He was shaking. He was hyperventilating. So many memories began to pass through his mind, so many different people.
A metal flask was brought to dry lips, by wrinkled and ruined hands. A long scar started from the left side. He pulled the container noisily away from his mouth, followed by a thirst-quenched, satisfied 'Ahh'. He pointed at it, pulling his finger away from the flask.
"Hayakawa, remember: madness is not predictable. Devils hate everything unpredictable...one day this may save your life. Be confident; you are completely out of your mind."
His vision stopped shaking. He gripped the hilt of the katana and the handle of the knife tightly. He knew what he had to do; trying would cost him nothing.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, holding the air in his lungs. He got into position, loading his legs. He threw the knife a few inches into the air to hold it upside down, blade upward. The weapons were firm in his hands, his knuckles were about to crack from how hard he was gripping them.
He exhaled forcefully through his nose and opened his eyes determinedly; he looked up at his enemy, their gazes met.
Ai had arrived; her weapon was just over a meter away from him. She brandished it forcefully; Aki saw her muscles pump before she released it with a thrust.
It was like in his vision.
Aki snapped. He ran toward the blade, as fast as his legs would allow him.
Death was now inches from his neck, but he did not stop.
He charged the two weapons with all the vigor he had, bringing the knife downward and the katana upward.
The spikes of the broadsword gripped the skin of his neck; it tore under the conflicting forces of his rush and the movement of the weapon.
A vermilion splash scattered through the air.
But Aki did not stop; not yet. He gritted his teeth and put the pain aside. He had passed the weapon.
He stood before the devil's massive belly.
With decision, he moved the two weapons in opposite directions. He sank them into the rotten, dark mush. He brought them together in the center. He opened a chasm. He continued digging through the dense bowels, throwing himself into it.
He opened the other side as well. It went through the body of the Love Devil, emerging from her back. He slid with his knees on the floor, leaving behind him Ai, who crumpled in on herself, screaming, screeching, trudging, unable to regenerate fast enough, losing pitch black blood. It splattered everywhere: on the floor, on the glass, on the walls, even on him. His clothes were soaked with rotten blood; his face, his skin were completely submerged in black, he could feel it as it dripped. Blood continued to gush from his neck. He let go of the knife, which vibrated as it touched the floor, brought one hand to the wound, covering it. He fell forward exhausted. He barely held on with his elbows. In front of him was Angel, struggling to get back on his feet. Aki gathered his last energy.
"Angel, give her the finishing blow!"
Angel was breathing hard. He was shabby, exhausted. But he did not let it be repeated twice. He surged forward wobbly, grabbing the black scythe. It arrived in front of him. With one foot he climbed onto his healthy shoulder and jumped up to reach Ai's head. He brought the scythe behind his head charging it and then brandished it again.
Angel also plucked Love's head; the most precious rose in that garden flew away. He did not stop. He continued to break her up, cutting her to shreds until her body was reduced to so many pieces and exploded like a bubble. The broadsword also melted in the air.
Angel landed again. He leaned his foot wrongly, stumbling and falling ruefully to the ground.
Ai's head rolled, until it landed beside Aki's arm.
The barred eyes, whose hearts were still moving, looked at him irately. She still looked alive.
"You know why you lost, Love Devil," Aki gasped with difficulty. "Because you underestimated the purity of my soul."
He planted the tip of the katana in her forehead, between her eyes. Eyes that rolled backward into her skull and turned completely white and glassy.
"Next... I don't talk to devils... like you..."
He slumped to the ground on his side, lacking strength. He rolled with difficulty supine. Everything around him was whirling... he felt feverish, chills shook his body. His eyelids were heavy.
Soon darkness would greet him.
Angel struggled to get up, levering on his arms. Behind him the battle between the hybrids had just ended. His vision was shaking, he stretched his gaze in front of him. Not far, Aki was lying on the ground, motionless, in a pool of blood expanding slowly. He widened his eyes, felt his heart beating painfully hard in his chest, almost causing him to gasp for breath.
He dragged himself slowly next to him.
"Aki..."
He looked into his face; he was as white as a ghost. His skin was shaken by powerful shivers and wet with sweat and black blood. His eyes were still slightly open, trembling.
"Aki!" he called him back louder. But he did not answer.
He rummaged in his pocket and took out his hat. He pressed it firmly against his injured neck, trying to stop the flow of blood. He brought his other hand to his cheek, stroking it. It was cold... Aki's skin was not meant to be so cold; quite the opposite. It was warm, soft. Not like that... he was not ready to accept that he would never touch him again. Sadness continued to grow inside him. Aki's eyelids trembled painfully, barely closing.
"Aki... don't... please stay here," he whispered. He shook his head slightly, hoping thus to keep him awake.
His eyes were tingling, his vision blurring and becoming watery. A tear escaped from her eyelids, falling onto Aki's face. Angel never thought he could feel such pain, never thought he could cry. He sobbed pathetically; there was nothing he could do.
A faint light hit him. He turned toward the source, his eyes wide and spirited. Commander Kishibe was pointing a flashlight at him; he had just come in through the main door, he hadn't even noticed. He approached him menacingly. Angel realized that he still had his hand on Aki's cheek; he quickly withdrew it.
"It's not what it looks like... I didn't do it," his voice was low.
Kishibe stared at him. He barely turned around, as if giving an account of the battle. He sank his hand into a pocket. Angel hesitated for a moment, afraid. Was he going to kill him?
"Heal him..." Angel then ordered him, not caring what might happen to him.
Kishibe's gaze was grim. He took a small rectangular box from his pocket. He brought it before his eyes. The gadget illuminated the veteran's face palely. He pressed his thumb on it a few times and then brought it to his ear.
"This is Commander Kishibe, send ambulances to the nightclub... quickly, there are severely injured."
"How serious?"
"Hayakawa has half his throat slit."
"We'll be right there, but don't worry Hayakawa has tough skin."
"Hurry up and warn Makima as well."
He took the little box away from his ear, pressed his finger on it again, and put it back in his pocket. Then he squatted down at Aki's side.
"Move over," he ordered Angel, who obediently stepped back, also releasing his grip from the cap. Kishibe continued to compress the neck wound, observed it a little better. "I know you didn't do it, you wouldn't be alive now"- he pointed to Denji and Power lying unconscious on the floor - "don't worry, they'll fix him... it's a bad cut but it's not too late yet. As soon as help arrives, let's get out of here, get in the car, and we'll go back to HQ... without a word. Understand?" he said in a stern tone.
Angel nodded. If that could help Aki in any way, he would do anything they requested. In the distance the insistent sirens of the helpers could already be heard.
Kishibe shifted his gaze to Aki's face, which continued to tremble.
"What have you gotten yourself into, eh Aki?"
Author's note: two chapters to go, I hope you are liking the story. Please, let me know what you think about it, I'd love to hear your opinion, see you soon with the next chapter :3