"Slay… Evil… Now!" Okurimi Mibu, the Man the Devil Disowned, panted out while creeping up to the hovering collection of living prismatic artifacts that was the mercenary Vizeriman.
"You!" Khinzira, the faithful desert tribeswoman who served Vizeriman and Fennec through him, leaped at Okurimi Mibu. The tribeswoman with ivory decorations to her armor turned around with a flying roundhouse and slammed a sharp fang in her heel into Okurimi Mibu's jaw. The fang slashed the rotting samurai that would not die and her heel became stuck inside his cheek and gums, stabbing through his jaw.
Despite the gruesome nature of the injury, Okurimi Mibu hardly even flinched, turning his head around and throwing the woman whose heel was stuck in his jaw off her balance. The unnatural position that the swordsman forced upon her made Khinzira's left knee buckle while Mibu raised his sword and prepared to stab at the tribeswoman with the wrath of a hell ogre, hell-bent on punishing and smiting the wicked.
An ear-raking shriek of ravaged glass made Khinzira grunt and shake her head even through the reverse-elephant-style helmet she donned. Okurimi Mibu's sword thrust straight into a reflective wall of living glass that assembled from separate sharp pieces of glassy shrapnel that formed an impassable reflective wall when cluttered together. Seeing her chance to free herself, Khinzira stamped the boot of the other free leg into Okurimi Mibu's chest while pulling with her trapped leg. After a few crude yanks, she managed to free her fanged heel while spilling unidentifiable black slops that smelled of rotten trees.
"Slay. Evil. Now," Okurimi Mibu gargled while turning to the large hovering system of angular, crystal-like shapes made from highly reflective and perfectly pure glass panels. Vizeriman's body, arms, each segment of its wings, and fingers all had a matching, spiked, almost conical-like shape. The newly reborn form of the host of the Heart of the Desert now resembled a floating glass butterfly, had it not been for the bald human body held over the glass formation from the waist up.
"It's highly hypocritical of you to seek that when you yourself still draw breath. Then again, I suppose not even someone as possessed as you could take your own life, isn't that right, the Man the Devil Disowned?" Vizeriman wondered without a hint of malice in his expression. After his ascension to this new glassy form, the mercenary must have seen himself as a higher form of life. A majestic and almost divine being who was beyond being mad at those he saw so beneath him.
Extending his broad glass wings, Vizeriman lowered himself as close to the ground as he could without the bottom spike of his body touching the tile set. Unexpectedly, Okurimi Mibu sheathed his sword and extended his torn white gloves and the rotten-to-the-bone fingers peeking through the holes out. The maniac manslayer of the New Shinsengumi adopted a grappling fighting pose.
"Like all men, this asshole doesn't know his own limits. I've experienced firsthand how dangerous that quality can be," Khinzira grumbled, giving Vizeriman a wayward look that asked her lifelong mentor to beware.
"Stand behind me, Khinzira. You have walked too inspiring of a path and have accomplished too much to die to this dog in these fighting pits. Watch as I do the most exalted and divine thing imaginable and deliver this poor soul the eternal rest that is due, saving the world from Okurimi Mibu's misguided crusade in the process…" while Vizeriman's face remained blank, his voice trembled and by the end of his proclamation, he shed a rhombus-shaped glass tear that fell to the tile set with a high-pitched clack.
Exclaiming a bestial, wolf-life growl, Okurimi Mibu rolled forward on the ground, moving behind Vizeriman in an instant. The speed at which Okurimi Mibu positioned himself to loom directly in front of Khinzira, who stood behind Vizeriman's extended and protective glass wing, stunned the tribeswoman. She scrambled to defend herself from being ripped apart limb by limb by this maniac before Mibu turned around, ignoring her completely to go for Vizeriman.
His thunderous right cracked straight at Vizeriman's back, causing the back of the glass idol to crack in ripples and come close to shattering. Vizeriman leaned forward in a distressed stumble. His face seemed almost sad and disappointed, surprised even that his opponent would dare strike him when he was nothing but graceful and excellent in his approach. A grated silver-color flash stunned Okurimi Mibu, it was the swift turn of Vizeriman's wing that rent Mibu's flesh and threatened to fillet the rotting corpse who simply couldn't comprehend it was well past his time to go already.
Grumbling like a wild animal, Okurimi Mibu wavered to the left and to the right while his cut-up body threatened to collapse into severed slices of flesh, held together by narrow strips of muscle and skin. Mibu recovered alarmingly fast, delivering a thunderous left and right beatdown. Vizeriman's eyes became blank, he simply couldn't understand why Okurimi Mibu, a man known as one of the finest swordsmen amongst the New Shinsengumi of the Iron Country, would attack him with mere fists. What was even more stunning–he was highly successful in this primitive method of combat for Vizeriman's pristine immortal glass body was close to shattering, splitting with frightening and vocal like the thunderclap ripples.
"What a vicious sound!" the announcer bellowed, leaning over the railing of his stand. "In this collision between two immortals, Okurimi Mibu has chosen the innovative method of putting his fists to work, rather than employing his sword! Based on the thunderous sound and the vicious cracks plaguing Vizeriman's immortal glass body, that's actually dealing immense damage! It's as if Okurimi Mibu has chosen to fight the glass man with a pair of hammers, rather than a sword!"
"I see…" Vizeriman observed. "So, you've witnessed firsthand the futility of challenging me with a sharp weapon. Realizing that any slash or thrust would simply slip off the perfect prismatic angles of my splendid new body, you've chosen to put your fists to work instead. Perhaps it makes a twisted lick of sense, but your fighting style is as primitive as your immortality."
With a high-pitched shriek, Vizeriman's prismatic body core shifted, sliding like a complex geometrical shape and forming new angles while adopting a wholly different shape. In this reformation, all the cracks of his immortal body were put to work and became mere angles to his new bodily shape. After completing the new configuration, Vizeriman seemed to be almost wholly unharmed, as if the immortal glass man was born anew again.
At the same time, the shrapnel that became excessive and unnecessary to the transformed body skidded out as a patch of glass spikes. Okurimi Mibu's fists became entrapped in the sharp shrapnel and, when the undying serial killer forcefully pulled his arms away from the glass spikes penetrating them, the separated arms flopped to the side like peeled cheese sticks. Because of how rotten and mucky the consistency of Okurimi Mibu's flesh was, it simply skidded from the bone, leaving the Man the Devil Disowned with two lowered hands that were merely splintered skeleton sticks.
"Your bestial and inhuman method of transcending the natural laws of life and death by merely being too angry to die is disgraceful in the face of one such as I. A perfect, immortal body. I can simply hope that you choose to accept the fact of your death after I do away with you," Vizeriman sneered at his helpless foe with spite.
"Slay… Evil… Now!" Okurimi Mibu growled. Unable to move his arms, the twisted lawman began kicking with his feet, even though they skidded away from Vizeriman's complex and almost serpentine glass body shape alongside the adamantine glass surface.
Wasting no further breaths, Vizeriman swiped his wings, slicing Okurimi Mibu into filleted pieces and leaving the undying lawman to collapse into a pile of rotted chunks before him. Segmented into a handful of vertically sliced parts, the very human eye of Okurimi Mibu still stared with an undying hatred, aiming its look directly at Vizeriman.
"Even in such a miserable state, you still cling to life. I suppose that despite our innumerable differences, the two of us are bound by one similarity — our fear of losing our immortal bodies and succumbing to the cold and merciless embrace of death. Do not worry, I will make your death anything but cold. For not even eternal life can fester inside the belly of scorching flames," with his glass wings spread wide in a cross-like shape, Vizeriman hovered in the air and turned diagonally down. Catching the intense glare of the desert sun, he absorbed and directed the light through his glass prism body directly at the fallen slices of his foe, making the pile of rotten flesh that was once Okurimi Mibu catch ablaze and burn up in a roaring firestorm.
Even Khinzira, the tribeswoman who had no love lost for the boundless ambition and vanity of man, gulped in terror at Okurimi Mibu's resolve when she saw the charred remains of Okurimi Mibu and his haunting whited-out eyes still peer into absolutely nothing that they could see. All that Okurimi Mibu had for him now was eternal pain and the basic existence of being slices of charred human flesh, separate from any control over its limbs or any senses. And yet, the knowledge that evil persisted in the world was all that Okurimi Mibu needed to cling to his pointless life as scorched viscera.
"Hmm…" Vizeriman grumbled, shifting his form once more to return to a flatter panel-like form to catch as much sunlight as possible and reflect it in as concentrated of a beam as possible at his defeated foe. The seared remains of Okurimi Mibu vanished in a ray of intense white sunlight and turned to mere black ash that scattered alongside the tumbleweed. "A man that's merely too angry to die can only elude death for so long. Only someone who can accept something grander than they are and transcends their humanity can truly be immortal," Vizeriman stated, addressing the scattered pile of ash as if it still kept Okurimi Mibu's unwavering will for judgment of the wicked.
"Okurimi Mibu is no more! Vizeriman from Fennec's crew eliminated Okurimi Mibu, the serial killer! This leaves it at 86 remaining competitors and only 5 remaining serial killers! It appears this encounter determined the superior immortal of the two undefeated, considerable powerhouses of their separate factions who have both scored some major eliminations already!" the announcer yelled out as if he was putting the finishing touches to his apex rock anthem. "At this point, one has to wonder, is there any competitor here that can stop Vizeriman? This competitor has faced martial artists, and exterminators, and lived through the ire of Cursed Warriors and serial killers alike! Could he be an immovable contender of the Top 16!?"
"That asshole!" Khinzira growled, shaking her fist over her head. "He put the target on your back, making boisterous claims like that!"
"Let them come," Vizeriman lowered himself to the ground level again by the side of his protégé. "The sooner their mortal bodies fail them, the sooner this battle royale will be over with."
"Yo, missy!" a raggedy-looking swordsman with a baggy, mud-colored hakama, a dull and dusty black shirt and an orange haori with rubbed-off yellow floral decorations approached Jinko Shinza and Vatee, both of whom were watching over the slumbering Five-Tails statue containing Mana's soul and mind. Vatee coiled her body for an impending strike, but Jinko calmed her down by extending her hand off to the side.
"This man approaches us directly and addresses me. He might not be looking for trouble. It might not be too smart to look for brawls everywhere so how about we hear what he has to say, even if he is… Rough-looking," Jinko defused the defensiveness of her temporary ally in the battle royale and stepped out to confront the shaggy-haired samurai who was scratching his ear with his pinky all the way until meeting up with the pink-haired kunoichi from the Genjutsu Tree Village.
"It's a real noisy and violent place out there. How bouts I help ya out and take care of ya for a favor?" the tall, tanned man scratched his shaggy dark hair incessantly, almost like encouraging all the fleas to jump ship or craving some sort of addictive substance. Despite the man's unimpressive appearance, the katana sheathed in a sublime black sheath hanging tied by a white ribbon strap looked expensive and Jinko didn't have a doubt in her mind that this oddball could handle himself in a fight. As rough as he looked, there wasn't a single scratch on him that could have been earned in battle, meaning that this man either knew how to stay out of trouble incredibly well or was exceptionally effective in battle.
"Unfortunately, I'm all out of favors to give," Jinko shrugged. She didn't want to sound too dismissive and rude, despite wanting nothing to do with this strange vagabond swordsman. "I intend on standing my ground alongside Vatee-san to protect the spirit resting inside the Five-Tails' statue. My village owes the Five-Tails a grand debt, so I feel indebted to protect this statue with everything I've got."
"I didn't ask for your life's story, yeesh…" the shaggy samurai rolled his eyes with a long face. "I was just wondering if you wanted to have a good time for some benefits, that's all."
"That is awfully forward of you," Jinko's right eye twitched.
"You're the one making assumptions here, missy. A man and a woman can have a good time sharing a drink or gambling," the swordsman looked a tad startled at how extremely his intentions were misrepresented. "That being said, I've been known to win the innocence of a girl or two over dice, but that wasn't exactly my decision, and I prefer booze and money."
"Aren't samurai meant to treasure their honor more than their life?" Jinko squinted in disdain for the samurai's expressed tastes.
"Shit!" the shaggy swordsman cursed with a sneezing-like motion before lowering his right hand to the hilt of his sword and lightly spreading his legs to bring his center of balance lower for a swifter drawing motion. "I really wish you didn't just publically question my honor, missy. Now I guess I'll have to kill you and that's an awful waste."
"Wait, wha…" Jinko blinked a few times in a stunned state. Her eyes blinked nervously in reaction to an effortless draw of her opponent's sword. A painful red twinge cut through the black façade that had landed over her eyes. The raggedy samurai moved differently from any fighting style that Jinko had ever seen. It was as if he put his entire body into the movements and acted with extreme relaxation, fighting fueled by sheer instinct and bloodlust rather than honed martial arts moves.
With Jinko staggering back with a crimson gash on her chest, her opponent slid across the ground with his right foot forward, forcing Jinko to hop with a backward flip but before she could complete it, the swordsman had already returned to a void standing position. With a flare of chakra bursting around the young woman's right forearm, signaling the emergence of the Herculean Strength technique medical ninja employed through precise chakra control, her opponent closed his eyes and weaved around her desperate right hook with a shuffle of his legs that spun him around his opponent's body and positioned him back-to-back with Jinko.
Vatee raced across the distance between her and the Five-Tails' statue and her ally in protecting Mana's stone prison body. She lunged forward with stone fangs, looking to dig into the vagabond who flipped the switch to being murderous at a snap of his fingers. Not to be completely obvious, Vatee sent the front of her body soaring as she arced it in an aerial overhead waving bite. She couldn't even see the vagabond swordsman move, but he was in the air in an instant, swinging his sword horizontally and deflecting Vatee's momentum with the perfect amount of counteracting force.
"Spirit Art: Hydra!" Vatee sent a resounding telepathic signal, expelling a violent shockwave from her red-glowing eyes. The heat emanating from her spiritual chakra concentrated in a lone singularity in between the two clashing forces, resulting in a deafening pop that sent fractal pink ethereal projectiles, similar to energy missiles, at the airborne samurai. The mysterious raggedy swordsman bent his back backward and spiraled with a twirl through the air, eluding the mystical spiritual missiles that collided with one another in their desperate effort to overwhelm the swordsman with numbers.
Gracefully, the samurai landed untouched behind Vatee, who now had to somehow recover from the investment into her Spirit Art technique and prepare to answer her illusive opponent. By the time Vatee could even comprehend her predicament and order her body to scramble and intercept the vagabond samurai, her opponent was already spinning in place and generating momentum for a crippling drawing slash that would sever Vatee's serpentine segmented body in two.
The swordsman blinked with crystal-clear eyes. His flawless movements halted, and he rolled through the skies with an aerial rolling overhead sword slam. A thunderous crack threatened to shatter the eardrums of all the awakened spectators as the force from the collision between the horned forehead of a grand monument of a dolphin horse and a chakra-imbued blade snuffed out the light and ignited it anew when a cerulean thunderbolt crashed down and split the two colliding forces apart with a concussive shockwave.
"Huh…?" Jinko panted, clutching her chest with a hand glowing with emerald light and healing the blood-spewing gash as quickly as she could. "The Five-Tails, it saved us again."
"She's awake!" Vatee let out a triumphant telepathic resonance.
"Damn! Shit's getting a bit crowded now, isn't it? It never even occurred to me to get an alliance going. Then again, I'm not the most agreeable person. I've killed the last couple of thugs I've affiliated with so… Probably wouldn't have worked out anyway," the vagabond exhaled once with a hearty puff while raising his hanging sword arm from the ground and sheathing his sword.
"What an unforeseen development! The slumbering Five-Tails statue that most of us have already written out has returned to the fight with full force! This living monolith from the dwindling ranks of the Chaos Factor faction once challenged all other competitors and survived the ensuing scuffle! Soragen Hanamuro is a pardoned criminal and an experienced manslayer, but even such a ruthless and hardy man might not be up for such a challenge!" the announcer howled out, overpowering the clamor from the audience that had long since begun considering the fallen Five-Tails monument part of the scenery rather than an active combatant.