Happy New Years one and all… damn, I'm on a roll with chapters coming out at fitting occasions, in this chapter that contains more beginnings than endings.
Got a bunch of guest reviews from readers with the names of Grisaia characters. Nothing really specific to respond to, but I appreciate all the hype you folk were generating.
Tedium was the enemy of every long-lived race.
Thus, it wasn't particularly strange for one to be observing his 'toy box' on a silent night.
A toy box that his current favorite toy had named 'Tartarus Island', of all things.
A 'man-made', or rather 'human-made' island floating in the south Pacific. The seat of power for an international terrorist and arms dealer.
How amusingly arrogant of the little ape, to revel in such paltry influence.
Yet how exceedingly proper of his favorite toy.
Heath Oslo should be arrogant, should be cruel, mean, vicious, petty, greedy, and vain.
Evil that could only belong to a rare and true Devil, born into the body of a frail pathetic human. A divine mistake, a cosmic miscalculation of hilarious proportions.
What a wonderful plaything.
And so when he observed through the looking glass a toy that was not his own intruding upon his toy box, he did nothing but watch and observe with curiosity, the thought of warning his toy never even crossing his mind, not even for a moment.
He had granted Heath Oslo more than enough 'benefits', after all, and every toy broke eventually.
As long as the puppets put on a proper show, he did not care at all if they hung themselves by their own strings.
The dull pop of vertebrae being forcibly separated was muffled by the sounds of the waves.
Yuuji seated the corpse against the wall, and stole its walkie-talkie.
Then, he flexed his metallic right hand to summon a pistol with a decent silencer, and…
His hand remained empty.
Not panicking at all, Yuuji tried again, to a similar result.
'Oi, you guys falling asleep in there?' Yuuji whispered into the inner darkness of the Arsenal Memoir.
… No answer.
Come to think of it, the inside of his head was awfully quiet.
Using the few minutes he had before the corpse was 'checked up on', Yuuji confirmed that from his Sacred Gear he had no access to weapons, Echoes, Shouts… couldn't even reach the Ghoul.
Arsenal-made prosthetic hand was working just fine, though.
With that in mind, Yuuji decided to leave out the Bishop, and go for an even split.
For most, losing access to their greatest weapon at the start of a violent night would have been a cause for alarm.
But for Yuuji, he had realized that the only one looking through his eyes was himself, and that he didn't have to 'share the experience' with anyone else.
Deeper into the manmade island the Devil went, unaware that he was grinning all the while.
The Arsenal was in chaos.
They couldn't reach their Host, couldn't reach Yuuji, at all.
The only clue to his current status was some terrorist schmuck who had died without realizing it, only to wake up in the Arsenal with his head facing the wrong way.
So all the spirits of the restless, nameless dead were panicking enough to make up for Yuuji's share and more.
And, in a perfect example of the twisted nature of the Arsenal, the last man that Yuuji had killed was attempting to reassure his new comrades that, since he'd died without raising the alarm, his killer was likely still undetected.
It fell short somewhat, when the new addition learned that the Host was a Reincarnated Devil, and couldn't help but exclaim that maybe he did have a chance after all.
Because Tartarus Island was no place for 'humans' of any kind.
It tasted like iron, and smelled like sulfur.
So they called that little red pill Hellfire.
Hellfire was the reason Heath Oslo was never outnumbered, and why no one who entered his service ever got to leave.
… And why no one ever wanted to.
The brand new designer drug that no one else on the market could supply, tailormade to make mean winners and vicious losers.
They called it psychopathy in pill form, like the devil on your left shoulder had kicked off the angel on your right to make room for one of his buddies.
You felt mean, and you felt good about, a sweet and low feed of dopamine that lasted days with no crash at the end. Selling your soul had never been such an easy deal, and the rank and file were cycled in and cycled out too fast to ever find out where the metaphors ended and reality began.
Every grunt on that man made island floating in the southeast Pacific was taking Hellfire on the regular.
And not a single one of them truly believed that demons were real, until the Devil came calling.
'If you don't have a weapon, kill your enemy and take theirs'.
It was one of those 'unreasonable yet logical' lines that Asako had been so fond of espousing.
It made a twisted sort of sense in that, providing you could get things started, you would usually run out of enemies before you ran out of weapons.
But out of the numerous things wrong with that line of thinking, Yuuji had encountered a fairly obvious problem that hardly rated the term.
… He didn't have any 'enemies', at least not yet.
Without lowering his guard in the least, Yuuji made plans to make sure that no one back home found out just how lopsided a fight to the death between a human and a Devil really was.
Organs ruptured, bones powdered, the bodies of grown men doing their best impression of an unopened juicebox being stomped on.
Blood and meat dripped from the ceilings, the walls.
But really, what were you supposed to do against someone who could cleave a body in two with the edge of his hand?
He didn't even need his metal hand to do it, so mostly he just enjoyed the dumb looks on their faces when that same metal prosthetic started parrying pistol rounds.
Oh sure, the underbelly of the fake island was too claustrophobic for him to avoid everything, but he didn't need the gallons of adrenaline to know that doubling up on Rooks meant their SMGs and their handguns were the equivalent of hip firing a .22 at a charging rhino.
Pinpricks and papercuts.
It was a massacre of grotesque proportions, but Yuuji didn't really have a sensation of killing 'people' at all.
It wasn't like he was going out of his way to dehumanize the druggies, even if they must have been hopped up on some good shit to have not lost morale marching into the teeth of a blender on its highest settings.
It wasn't even that the 'traces of Devils' masked the scent of humans until he broke them open, either.
It was just that Yuuji was only on that floating fortress to kill one man.
To kill one man, and sink everything he had ever built.
It didn't concern him at all what was left floating in the wreckage.
Sakaki Yumiko had always known Hell was real.
Even before her King had dragged her there because human restaurants didn't have her favorite pizza topping.
Long before the first person to treat Yumiko as a human turned out to not even be human herself.
"Ara… something big is happening, isn't it?" Her master murmured, doing her best to pretend the constant anemia hadn't left her as frail as a wilted flower.
Someone had just cut the power, which meant no lights… but neither of them needed lights to begin with, and the 'restraints' all had their own backup generator anyways.
In a small, repurposed hangar, her King, her master was strapped to the far wall as if crucified, a veritable web of seals and tubing both on top of and inside her once beautiful body.
The Devil Heath Oslo had summoned for a request, then tricked and bound when he found her at her weakest.
Her King, who was the 'donor' for the main ingredient of the drug known as Hellfire.
The blood of a former Ultimate-class Devil, still potent even if the source was one far fallen and much disgraced.
Yumiko did her best to return an expression just as brave- both watched another fail, and pretended not to notice.
"At this point, we're likely the only people who are below deck and still alive," Yumiko 'calmly' confirmed. "Apparently our uninvited guest is just the right age to sit behind me in class, yet it's taken him less than half an hour to flood the lower levels, using blood instead of seawater."
"Oh my, it seems our dear host has finally stepped on the dragon's tail? Such a shame," The good cheer wasn't feigned this time, for either of them.
They could both die with a smile if they knew Heath Oslo was dying too.
"Yeah, that blonde bastard might finally get what's coming to him."
With clear effort, her King opened her eyes all the way to get a proper look at her.
"How long before they throw you into the fray, Yumiko?"
"I have an appointment on the flight deck in five minutes," Yumiko shrugged, hiding her hands behind her back. "The pasty bastard let me visit you first, for motivation or whatever nonsense I didn't listen to." The opinions of trash were trash, even when they were correct, that's just how it was.
Her King's expression turned more tragic than it already was, and Yumiko panicked a little, floundering for an excuse.
"Y-you don't have to worry, the two of us together should be enough to match him!" Nevermind that she was fighting the intruder alone, "Du Pont is obsessed with the man, so all I need to do is hang back and let them kill each other off, neither of them will have the leeway to pay attention to me!"
Especially not with her Sacred Gear in play… at least if Du Pont didn't disable its 'permission' on a whim.
"... Yumiko, I know that I have no right to… make requests…"
"T-that's not true, you're my King, of course you-"
"Please, please don't die." Her King managed in a bare whisper. "Please… please don't…"
She choked down the same words that each of them took turns choking down.
'Please don't leave me alone'.
"O-of course, my King." Yumiko tried. "I won't… I won't let you down."
It was her turn to choke down the words 'not again'.
"I'll be back before you know it," Yumiko promised, gently lifting her hand to stroke her King's cheek, wishing she could give her a proper hug goodbye but knowing that it would aggravate the tubing.
Closing her eyes, her King leaned briefly against Yumiko's hand.
"I'm… sorry, Yumiko." She sighed as Yumiko retracted her hand a moment later. "I wish I could have been… the King that you needed."
"Don't say that!" Yumiko hissed, expression turning fierce. "Never once have I regretted becoming your servant!"
Exhausted from even their brief conversation, her King said nothing more, just watching her with the sad ghost of a smile.
Neither of them had the courage to say goodbye, and so Yumiko left her bound King behind as she went off to fight for her.
She had been ordered to die.
By a clone with a brother complex, who wanted a front row seat to spectate from as the genuine article killed her.
Like she was an amateur getting into the ring, to get the crowd's excitement up before the prize fight.
Of course, she didn't plan on meekly rolling over and dying.
Sakaki Yumiko intended to win.
She had to.
… They had promised they would die together.
So she would defeat Kazami Yuuji, then Du Pont when he went into a rage at having his kill 'stolen'. He should be too busy trying to murder her to bother pulling the plug on her master, so it would be her best chance.
Indeed, all she needed to do was beat someone who was, by all accounts, stronger than Du Pont, and then defeat Du Pont, whom she had never once beaten.
Compared to her fear of disappointing the only woman who had ever believed in her, those back-to-back fights were trivial, really.
Hardly worth mentioning.
… By the waning light of the crescent moon, Sakaki Yumiko went off to die with the dignity of one who had made peace the inevitable.
"I really do have an evil twin," Yuuji said, as if it had nothing to do with him.
Did it make him vain to think the other guy had good style?
Black vest with white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, tie was probably a clip-on to prevent someone strangling him with it. White hair and red eyes…
It was like looking at himself in the mirror, if he'd been born with the same eye and hair color as Kazuki.
Pretty sure he'd never worn a shitty smile like that, though.
Given the woman, no, girl at his evil twin's side, maybe they shared a taste in busty black haired Nadeshiko's.
… Eh, Akeno's were bigger.
Yuuji was making a note to himself to convince Akeno to wear a leather catsuit ( also no bra, of course), when the sharp-eyed girl vanished from sight, despite the flight deck having no cover for several hundred feet.
"Hi hi, Nii-san!" The pasty bastard waved and called out. "I've been looking forward to this for a long, long time, but watching on the cameras is no fun. I won't interfere until Yumi Yumi is dead, so feel free to get to know each other better without a third wheel in the way!"
"Don't call me that, you bastard," that quiet, feminine grumble was accompanied simultaneously by a strong impact against his metal forearm, raised to block a kick he couldn't see, aimed at the side of his neck.
… Metal on metal, slightly muffled, the girl's boots had hidden plating.
Letting the kick blow him back, Yuuji put a pair of bullets through the space the girl should have been in, not bothered by the borrowed gun failing him.
Then he hit the deck in a roll as a pair of bullets answered back from thin air, and again as the shots continued.
She was probably wondering why she was only grazing him with attacks he couldn't see, but what did she expect from him, an exposition dump?
Two Knights just gave him the visual acuity to see the bullets that stopped being invisible once they left the gun.
And his other senses were heightened to match.
Poor girl probably didn't know that her boss was the one who gave him the scars to prove he could fight someone he couldn't see.
The 'fight' had gone on for a minute, if it could even be called that.
Her one-sidedly and futilely attacking someone who couldn't even see her, burning through her ammunition at a rapid pace.
It couldn't be helped that Yumiko was bewildered.
A Reincarnated Devil used as a hidden trump card against humans.
She'd dealt with Strays that had gotten in the way once or twice, but…
Yumiko's only consistent experience with fighting the supernatural was getting beaten down by her owner.
She simply had no idea how to fight a Devil, and no one to teach her to properly fight as a Devil.
And her baptism by fire was against the worst possible opponent.
… She could barely 'feel' him at all.
Her King had taught her that Devils were attuned to desire, but this Devil had none to speak of.
It made no sense.
It was baffling that someone would wage a one-man war and seemingly not 'want' anything out of it. She didn't have the frame of reference to understand that she could only perceive 'current' desires, things that could be put aside if one focussed.
To Yumiko's stunted supernatural senses, the man she could barely touch, even with all the advantages, was a terrifying enigma.
No fear, no frustration, no expression.
Something that wasn't quite boredom, flavored with a hint of half-hearted curiosity.
But it couldn't be helped that Yumiko couldn't understand her opponent. She had been out of her depth from the moment her King was shackled.
The inevitable result had just caught up with her, that was all.
"Desperation," Yuuji pointed out with indifference as she circled unseen.
"Fear," he continued, as Yumiko deftly slid into his blind spot with the sharp point of Carnwennan coming in low.
He caught her wrist with enough force that bones creaked beneath his fingers.
Yumiko cried out in pain, and the invisibility broke as her Sacred Gear slipped from nerveless fingers.
They were blacker than the night, murky like tar and deeper than the abyss.
Yumiko lost the ability to breathe as those merciless eyes bored into her own.
Yuuji tossed her over his hip and dented the metal floor with her body, and then dropped a knee on her midriff, blasting both air and blood from her open mouth.
Terrified and unable to breathe, Yumiko struggled, flailed, as Yuuji straddled her with a borrowed knife in both hands, putting his weight against it to force the point down onto her as she strained against him.
Slowly, inexorably, the knife sank down.
Watching Nii-san toy with the bitch had been pretty fun.
She had no idea why her pretty little magic knife was useless, and Nii-san had lured her in like a fish on a hook.
Personally he'd hoped the fight would have been just a little longer, but watching the knife sink into Yumi Yumi's chest inch by inch was pretty satisfying in its own way.
Nii-san was taking it slow.
… They really were similar after all, weren't they?
Smiling brightly, Du Pon watched his older brother break his toy.
… The knife finished its journey, and Yumiko's body went still.
That terrifying darkness within those stagnant black eyes receded, and Yuuji lifted a hand to put a finger to his lips.
"That dagger is your Sacred Gear, right?" Yuuji murmured quietly. "Turn it back on."
Too bewildered to consider disobedience, Yumiko put her free hand onto the hilt of the dagger resting lengthwise against her bosom and activated her Sacred Gear.
That soothing sensation of the world being muffled returned, allowing her to calm, somewhat.
"... What the hell are you planning?" She hissed back, still at an utter loss nonetheless.
Du Pont was laughing in delight, could he not see what was happening, or was he just being his usual insane self?
The moment Yuuji had gotten on top of her, he'd dropped his knife, before taking advantage of her confusion to pin her wrists with that metal hand of his.
… And then he'd scooped up Carnwennan, the dagger that her Sacred Gear took the form of, and pressed it carefully against her body, in a way that didn't allow its sharp edge to graze her exposed cleavage.
"From the audience's perspective, the knife I shoved into your chest just sank in up to the hilt, so you're probably dying noisily." Yuuji explained casually, keeping his voice low. "Swapping the Bishop back in was a good call."
… An illusion?
"... Why?"
"Why am I doing this?" Yuuji asked.
Yumiko could only nod.
"Just because you want to give up and die doesn't mean I'm going to help you."
"E-excuse me!?"
But Yuuji just nodded, unbothered by the quiet outburst.
"The desire to slap me is a much better 'desire' to be radiating like a beacon." Girl was acting like she'd never fought another Devil, how did she think he always knew where she was?
"Anyways, you can always roll over and die in the morning if you want, it's just..."
Yumiko blinked, violet eyes going wide.
"... Not my problem, honestly, but whatever leverage Oslo has over you isn't going to matter by the end of the night."
Yumiko bit her lip, hard, as the sudden desire to laugh welled up fiercely in her breast.
A chance.
He was giving her a chance.
The only chance she was probably ever going to get.
… Devils really were kinder than humans.
"Spell should hold for a bit, so wait until I'm going at it with the copycat and then bail."
This was the man that both Oslo and Du Pont were obsessed with.
… For the first time, she might be able to slip the notice of both and free her King.
And if she couldn't, they were probably both dead- somehow she didn't feel like her 'savior' was going to give her a lot of time before he blew the place sky-high.
Amazing how just a little sliver of hope made her feel like she could accomplish anything.
Yumiko smiled, really smiled for the first time in what felt like years as Yuuji rose up off her 'corpse' without another word.
She'd learned a long time ago that Devils weren't allowed to pray, but she accepted the headache with good grace as she wished, with all her heart, that everyone who had tormented her would be dead by the end of the night.
His evil twin looked almost giddy as Yuuji strolled his way over, the white-haired look-alike seeming to take extra amusement from how the gun in his hands belonged to the girl he'd just 'killed'.
Come to think of it, he hadn't even asked her name… unless her parents hated her and 'Yumi Yumi' actually was her real name.
Oh well, not his problem.
First he had to kill the copycat, the one who seemed like a mishmash of…
A few things.
Most of which were probably him.
"How'd the appetizer taste, Nii-san?" The copycat grinned with arms spread wide, a Glock in one hand and a combat knife in the other.
"Like the chef had bad taste."
"Haha~!"
Yuuji open-fired without a change in expression.
"Whoops, haha!" The copycat laughed and evaded with movements that clearly weren't human. "Aren't you curious at all, Nii-san?"
"Thought all my siblings were dead." Yuuji explained as he dashed away from the return fire. "Hold still and let me make it true again."
"Aw, don't be like that Nii-san, I've been looking forward to this!"
"Talk fast then."
A flash of white as the copycat slammed in, their knives grinding together as he bared his teeth in a savage leer.
"Names Du Pont, your clone mixed in with a few 'extras' to let me surpass you in every way that matters!" A point-blank shot sliced open Yuuji's cheek, and a lashing knife scraped off his metal forearm. "Keep me entertained until you die."
Yuuji kicked him across the deck.
Du Pont bounced once, twice, and snapped off a lucky shot that sent the gun spinning from Yuuji's hands.
So Yuuji closed the distance in seconds and kicked him again.
Watching impassively as his clone came to a halt, gagging and laughing on the floor, Yuuji considered his options.
That 'Du Pont' guy must have been the one who impersonated him to kill Seekvaira Agares.
So he was going to kill him, of course, but…
Well, even if it was rabid, killing a puppy left a bad taste in his mouth.
That creepy bastard really had tried to 'remake' both him and Kazuki, huh? That was what the hair and eye color meant.
He was going to lose his shit if he had to fight a black-haired, black-eyed Kazuki clone next.
Du Pont came streaking back in, and they met in a flurry of gunfire and slashing blades.
Yuuji broke one of Du Pont's fingers in the process of stealing his gun, and put the last bullet through his knee.
For good measure, he caught Du Pont's wrist and kicked in the other knee to make it match.
Kept upright by the wrist being ground to dust in the grip of a metal fist, Du Pont gave a bloody cackle.
"That easy, huh? I really can't beat Nii-san after all." He seemed strangely happy to have discovered that.
"It wasn't a bad try, though," Yuuji shrugged.
"Oh, did I get acknowledged?" Du Pont sing-songed. "Maybe dying a dog's death isn't so bad."
Callous dark eyes scrutinized him carefully, and then seemed to soften, almost imperceptibly.
A flash of steel opened Du Pont's throat from ear to ear, and Yuuji let the dying body fall to the ground.
"Sorry I can't stay, my stupid little brother." Yuuji walked away without looking back. "Do better in your next life."
Eyes wide, Du Pont gurgled the last of his life and died with a smile, the first tears he had ever shed glistening upon his bloody cheeks.
Never to know that the acknowledgement he sought was the greatest rejection of all, because 'acknowledging' his last battle was the only way to bar him entry to the Arsenal Memoir.
Thus, Seekvaira Agares and her peerage were avenged.
The camera feed on the laptop was centered upon the corpse of Du Pont.
A bit of a shame to have lost both the only properly made Humanoid Chimera and Sakaki Yumiko, but he still had 'her', and Yuuji was surely heading straight for him.
Thus, the losses had yet to outweigh the potential returns.
Closing the computer and sliding it away into a drawer, Heath Oslo lifted his wineglass and held it up to the light, swirling his drink gently.
As expected, the latest gift from his 'benefactor' had not served to slow down Yuuji overmuch, a gratifying discovery to say the least.
In truth, it had been a small concern of his that Yuuji would grow over reliant on the convenience of his Sacred Gear.
Watching him dismantle the failed product in brutal fashion helped put those concerns to rest.
Now, all he needed to do was muzzle his favorite dog, and Heath Oslo would be on the fast track to the top once more.
Reminding Yuuji of his proper place would be delightful.
The door opened, and his smile widened.
She was shocked when Yumiko, bleeding lightly and breathing hard, hauled the shutter door open and dashed inside.
"Y-Yumiko!?" Shouting brought on a coughing fit, but she couldn't help herself.
She had honestly never expected to see Yumiko again.
For a moment, she thought that maybe both of them had managed to finally die, but her constant pain hadn't dulled so that seemed unlikely.
Rather than look at her, Yumiko's eyes were darting about the room as if searching for something.
"Y-Yumiko… I'm glad you're… at least somewhat alright. What's happening… out there? I'm guessing that you… must have won?
Yumiko looked her dead in the eyes, and that was all it took to shut her up, and steal away what little breath there was in her lungs.
Purpose.
Yumiko's eyes were burning with purpose.
The only person who had never once given up on her, never once abandoned her, was looking more alive than ever.
"Master," Yumiko said firmly, "This is our chance."
"... Our… chance?" She managed to meekly repeat.
"We're leaving."
Yumiko's words were insane.
Foolish beyond belief.
If she had any sense at all, she would be fretting that her poor servant had finally snapped under pressure.
But Yumiko was the only person in all her much longer life who had never given up on her, never turned her back on her, willingly letting herself be dragged into their present nightmare so that her King wouldn't have to face it alone.
So perhaps she had snapped too, because despite how unbelievable Yumiko's words should have been, Roygun Belphegor didn't doubt a single one of them.
"Face to face after so long, and you certainly don't disappoint," Heath Oslo smiled. "Truth be told, you've arrived about three hours ahead of schedule, but it was an open invitation. But really, was it truly necessary to kill all of my men? Not even a shred of mercy for poor Sakaki-san?"
Sakaki? That was probably the Devil-girl's family name.
"You know I don't do halfway measures," Yuuji replied. "Everything you ever built is going to be ash by the end of the night."
"Even yourself?" Heath Oslo retorted with a sly smile.
His smirk cramped when Yuuji smiled right back.
"Sorry, but the Yuuji you're waiting for is never coming back," Yuuji said softly. "He's long gone, and I'm just here to put his demons to rest."
With a start, Heath Oslo finally realized how badly he had misread the situation.
It wasn't rejection, nor hatred.
Yuuji was facing him with apathy.
Yuuji had come to kill him, and somewhere along the way had decided it was just work.
That it was truly nothing personal.
Hundreds of potential scenarios he had run through his mind over the years, preparing for this very moment, and even the most outlandish of possibilities had never included one where Heath Oslo simply didn't matter at all to Kazami Yuuji.
"N-now hold on, Yuuji!" Heath Oslo blurted out in a rush, an unfamiliar emotion gripping his heart in a vice. "Aren't you the least bit curious? About how I disabled your Sacred Gear, what I've been doping my subordinates with? Surely you must have found it strange that they remain blithely unaware of their own mutations!"
"Canceling my Sacred Gear was a bit of a problem, yeah," Yuuji agreed. "Bet they're all panicking in there right about now, which is why I started letting people see me before I killed them," that way they could hopefully give 'status updates' to the Arsenal inhabitants. "But I wouldn't have any way to verify the info once you're dead, so it's useless anyways."
Yuuji tilted his head to one side.
"And I am a bit curious why all your supposedly 'human subordinates' were hard to tell apart from Low-class Stray Devils, but… they're dead anyways so whatever."
The information was supposed to be valuable.
He had checks and insurances, trump card after trump card.
… Rendered meaningless because Yuuji simply didn't care.
Heath Oslo activated one of his most powerful 'insurances' without hesitation, and Yuuji collapsed to his knees, bleeding from the ears as Heavenly Scripture spoken by the Pope himself began playing on surround-sound.
Heath Oslo let out a dramatic sigh, admitting to himself that he had actually been somewhat frightened.
Rising from his desk, he retrieved the priceless sword he kept as the centerpiece of his bookshelf, and unsheathed it.
He turned, and made his way over to the downed Yuuji, thrusting the blade forward without ceremony.
His aim was spoiled as a metal hand lashed out, closing over his sword hand with such force that it pulverized the bones between its fingers and the hilt.
Heath Oslo screamed.
Blood running down his face from his eyes and nose, Yuuji sneered, and twisted his arm so sharply that every joint popped free.
"H-how!? HOW CAN YOU EVEN MOVE!?" Heath Oslo screamed as he sank to Yuuji's level.
"Right hand isn't a Devil's hand." Yuuji shrugged. His prosthetic wasn't of infernal origin, and even if it did… it's not like it had ears? That would be a pretty bizarre hand.
His hand moving briskly despite his everything else feeling like it was on fire, Yuuji snatched up the katana, and hurled it at the sound unit on the shelf.
The scripture ended immediately, and so did Heath Oslo's chance at a turnaround.
Swaying slightly, Yuuji rose to his feet.
"You've really let yourself go, huh?" Yuuji looked down at Oslo. "Your pain tolerance is shit."
Yuuji proved it by slamming his fist down onto the other man's collarbone, disabling Oslo's good arm in the process.
The Heath Oslo of Yuuji's memories would have smirked instead of screamed.
Honestly… Yuuji felt a little pathetic over how badly his trauma had elevated the man he'd set off to kill all alone.
Heath Oslo was just a terrorist, maybe a first-rate terrorist, but still just a terrorist. Yuuji's retirement fund was paid for by the blood of people like Heath Oslo.
Actually, did Devils have retirement, or was that just a human thing? Something to think about…
… The background noise cut short when Yuuji firmly wrapped his hands around Oslo's throat, the man unable to resist without functional arms.
"I-if you kill me, this whole place will be blown sky-high," Oslo managed to gag, not realizing he was speaking only because he was allowed to.
"Deadman switch, huh?" Yuuji sighed in resignation. "Bet it's on a timer, be real awkward if you were in a state to be resuscitated and your body got blown to bits."
Heath Oslo's bulging eyes managed to widen further.
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
Without pomp or circumstance, Yuuji finished his 'errand' by strangling his demon to death with his bare hands.
With a ragged great gasp, Heath Oslo jolted back to life, heartbeat racing and eyes wild.
Mind awhirl, Heath Oslo felt the carpet of his office beneath his back, and…
Saw Yuuji sitting expressionlessly at his side.
Yuuji had returned to him after all, it would seem… but why had there been a need to revive him?
Thoughts addled by lack of blood flow snapped back into some semblance of coherence, and Heath Oslo tried to push himself away with arms he'd forgotten were broken.
The dark-eyed avenger reclining at his side flashed the Yuuji-equivalent of a sunny smile, and broke both of Heath Oslo's legs with two casual strikes of a metal fist.
Heath Oslo howled into the gag he hadn't realized he was wearing.
"Maybe it's all the rituals I did with Akeno, but I picked up a little bit of a lightning affinity," Yuuji commented casually as he rose and went around to the desk.
A pretty high affinity by his awful standards- enough to imitate a taser with his bare hands.
… Or a defibrillator.
"So now you're back to life, but… clock is still ticking." Then he opened his flesh and blood hand, letting a twisted bit of metal fall onto Heath Oslo's chest. "My brain got noisy all of a sudden, so I guess that knick knack is the key to whatever is disabling my Sacred Gear?"
Eight minutes and counting.
Heath Oslo began to panic and flail, useless with all four limbs crippled.
"And that confirms that you need hands to deactivate that deadman's switch," Yuuji drawled, shutting up the crippled terrorist in an instant.
Leaning down as he passed him by, Yuuji tore off the gag and kept going.
The office was noisy, as he left it behind.
Perhaps Heath Oslo begged to be saved.
Perhaps he tried to negotiate.
Perhaps he simply screamed curses and threats.
Yuuji couldn't have said, because to him, the last words of Heath Oslo were just background noise.
How delightful, how amusing.
He listened to how his toy begged and pleaded for his owner to save him, savoring each word with relish.
And denying every syllable with a kindly smile and a regretful shake of his head.
'Yuuji' was it? The one who had single handedly emptied the toy box?
What an amusing little fake he was.
Why, all it would have taken was a few timely deaths, a few chance meetings to have never occurred, and Kazami Yuuji could have been more monstrous than even Heath Oslo could have ever dreamed of.
If only he had been born a Devil.
Reaching into the office of the human he had already forgotten, he retrieved the crumpled remnants of the 'boon' he'd granted his discarded toy, and dissolved the ring entirely.
The Arsenal started getting noisy again now that his business was concluded, and just happened to coincide with the world turning wet and warm, leaving him staggering like a drunk.
Really, really bad time for the adrenaline to wear off and give him a proper appreciation of how badly he'd been messed up by that surprise listening to the Holy Scripture, felt like his brain was oozing out his ears.
Who the hell was shouting at him?
… Shit that hurt.
… Who was apologizing?
Don't talk all at once, bastards.
Yuuji pitched forward, and the Ghoul fell onto its hands and knees, crouched like a demented metal beast.
With all its might, the Ghoul flung itself airborne in a motion that looked like a pouncing predator, but was actually its attempt to launch Yuuji as far from the artificial island as it could.
Rusted wings of iron erupted from its back, as a chain of explosions brought Tartarus Island collapsing in on itself, flame and heat outracing the desperate flight of that twisted metal abomination.
An artificial Icarus flying too close to an artificial sun.
And just like Icarus, the ocean was there to catch the Ghoul as it fell, the ferocious current caused by the sinking island sucking it deep down into the depths.
Yumiko pulled Roygun down onto the floor of the speedboat and covered her King's body with her own as the horizon turned to flame.
Both women screamed as they found themselves caught on a stormy sea during a cloudless night, but by some miracle, their state of the art escape vehicle didn't dump them into the ocean.
It might have been minutes, it might have been hours, but they'd outraced the worst of it.
To celebrate, each woman picked a side of the boat to vomit over.
Thankfully, Roygun's limbs were so excessively bandaged, thanks to her overzealous servant that had practically mummified her extremities, that, even if her wounds were very, very aggravated, nothing bled through.
So Roygun only felt like she was dying.
The Devil could only laugh as it clicked in that her state was still a massive improvement, and Yumiko stared at her master like she'd gone insane as the Devil cackled, and then switched over to fussing over her master as Roygun's laughter abruptly ended in a coughing fit.
"Whoever said you get numb to pain is a filthy liar," Roygun moaned.
Yumiko's response was a sniffle, signaling Roygun's turn to fuss over her.
"Y-Yumiko!? W-what's wrong, are your wounds hurting where does it hurt!?"
"I-it's not that, Yumiko half-laughed, half-sobbed. "It just finally dawned on me that we really are free. I… honestly never believed we ever would be."
Roygun hugged her as fiercely as her bandaged, withered arms would allow.
It wasn't very fierce at all, and it made Yumiko cry all the louder as Roygun discovered that no, her own tears had not run completely dry. It was a discovery that probably should not have been a pleasant one, but filled her with a strange elation that she could only surrender to.
… The two women cried until exhaustion claimed them, and they passed out in one another's arms.
Barely an hour would pass before Yumiko awoke, awash with guilt, and they searched the wreckage for their savior.
But Kazami Yuuji was nowhere to be found, and in the end, they could only hope that he had safely made his escape.
They passed a sleepless, restless night, and without a word of discussion, they all filtered into the common room to be together.
All except one of them.
From the rooftop of the dormitory, a long and lonely howl broke the deep silence of a moonless night.
A hand outstretched into the darkness, a dream where she had tried to hold a hundred thousand hands when she herself possessed only two ending with an unsatisfactory result.
From behind long lashes, two eyes blinked open slowly.
With a yawn, she sat up and stretched, back popping as she shifted upon the 'bed'.
… Not hindered in the least by how she was waking up nearly five miles underwater, her 'bed' resting upon the ocean floor.
Still sleepy, she slowly turned her gaze this way and that, rubbing her eyes.
Normally she'd be very angry to be awoken so early, but noisy children were cute children, even when they were screaming for help.
But even if they had not meant to, they had reached out to her.
And she would not forsake them, even if her lump of a brother would be also be little grumpy to wake up early.
Curling her delicate hand into a fist, the young woman at the bottom of the ocean knocked against the 'bed' she was lying on.
|"Big Brother Jorm, wake up,"| she requested mentally, since talking underwater was hard.
In response to her words, the ocean was illuminated from below as a great golden eye cracked open, slitted pupil searching ponderously.
It was an eye so large that a cruise ship could have sailed between the gap between each eyelid.
|"... What is it… Sister?"| A mental voice like distant thunder sleepily responded to a mental voice with as much expressiveness as a machine.
The young woman seated on his scaly cheek pointed one finger insistently off into the distance.
|"The children need me."|
|"... And which part of that involves me, dear Sister?"| He was a snake, not a god.
The young woman puffed out her cheeks and crossed her arms beneath her bust.
|"Can't swim."| She tonelessly retorted.
The ocean currents shifted for miles as a slow exhale escaped great nostrils.
Only one of her brothers would recognize that monotone as being a pouty tone, and since he was in fact one of those brothers…
With a groan that sounded like the ocean floor was shifting, the coils of the serpent stirred, shaking off miles upon miles of ocean silt.
The languid motion brought high tide to the coast of Denmark six hours early.
The young woman floated herself up so that she could seat herself on the top of her brother's head instead of on the side of it, and stroked the scale that she couldn't even reach the sides of, despite being rather tall.
The difference in size was so lopsided that she could spread her body out quite comfortably between her brother's scales, provided he was still.
|"Thanks Big Brother Jorm."| she mentally murmured. |"Love you."|
With those quiet words of gratitude echoing through his ancient mind, the Midgard Serpent rose from the ocean floor, taking the time to shrink his colossal coils to a size that would not partially submerge the world as he swam through its oceans.
His sister would become very busy if he sent several thousand drowning victims straight to her realm, and she had other things on her mind at the moment.
Not again not again no not him not again not again no no no no someone help-
It was a desperate plea that had never once been answered.
They were the restless, nameless dead, and they were once more faced with a truth that their hosts always knew without being told.
That they, the countless spirits of the Arsenal Memoir, were destined to be the losers.
They were the uncelebrated and the unsung.
The ones for whom neither their prayers nor their curses were destined to be heard by anyone at all.
Not by anyone but their wielder, their host.
That was precisely why the bitter dead loved their living hosts so fiercely and so desperately.
Because their host was the only 'miracle' ever allowed to them.
… Until that very moment.
In a world of countless gods, it wasn't so strange that the forsaken would have one to call their own, and she had found them at long last.
… It wasn't the first time Yuuji had woken up tied to a bed, and not the first time he'd also had no idea how he'd gotten there.
That cuffs and a blanket were the only thing he was wearing was par for the course.
"Awake?" Asked a feminine voice even more monotone than his.
"Seems so."
With some bemusement, Yuuji took in the sight of the naked and expressionless beauty cuddled up to his side as she lifted herself partially on top of him, her plump cleavage contorting to mold itself against his chest and arm.
Her hair was straight and assumedly very long, since it framed her face without the ends of her bangs being visible, and colored entirely of a mixture of vertical red and blue streaks. From behind smoky dark lashes, golden eyes without pupils stared into his, her gaze somehow intense without any facial expression to accompany it.
Her body was cool to the touch and strangely light, given she was curvy and possibly taller than him, and her skin was so pale it seemed almost translucent.
… And whoever or whatever she was was far, far too powerful to be anything approaching human.
Her presence was soothing yet confining, somber yet gentle. A cool and tender darkness that felt like it was burying him alive.
"Your body," the woman tonelessly questioned. "How is it?"
"Good. Strangely so." Yuuji was used to waking up in pain even when he felt 'better than usual', and he suspected it was probably psychological, given how reincarnation hadn't helped.
The woman blinked once, and the white of her eyes turned black, her gaze narrowing as the golden orbs of her eyes burned like vicious moons.
"One would hope so, after the three weeks I stayed awake to rebuild you." Her voice was no less toneless, but there was a weight of authority there to accompany the sudden increase in eloquence.
… Hold on, three weeks?
Oh hell, the girls must be worried out of their-
"A day in Midgard is equal to seven in my realm," the woman placed a cool finger against his lips, yawning as she did. "And even if it would… simplify certain things, I would be rather cross with you if you had perished upon my bed."
"That would be a problem, yes," Yuuji agreed. "So thanks for saving my life." The list of questions was only getting longer, but he did have manners.
"Ah, so the mortals haven't quite forgotten proper gratitude." Her thin lips curved into a not-quite smile, and she disentangled her smooth, cool legs from his own in order to swing one over, sitting up to straddle Yuuji's hips.
"I will answer the many questions you surely must have, and more," the woman said as she gazed down at him, features blank yet gaze intent. Yuuji had a feeling that the great view was very much intentional, especially since she was sitting on his lap and there was no longer a blanket in anyone's way. "But first, I would have you hear my request."
"I'm listening." Didn't have much of a choice, and he did clearly owe her, so-
"Kazami Yuuji, I would have you become mine."
… So unless the request was out of the question, he'd do his best to grant it.
"No." Which it was.
"... No?" The white returned to her eyes as the woman tilted her head to one side, puzzled.
"No."
The expressionless woman blinked slowly, and puffed out her cheeks, reinforcing the impression that her white-eyed self was seemingly much 'younger'.
"Negotiations are hard."
The restraints he couldn't even budge with four Rooks easily lengthened as she took his wrists, and then placed his hands upon her breasts.
"The hell are you doing, woman?"
"Seducing you?"
"Why did you ask that like a question?"
"New experience," the woman explained. "Are you seduced?"
Yuuji considered his options.
Or rather, weighed two promises.
He'd promised Akeno to never sleep with a girl without running it by her first.
But he'd also promised her and the rest that he'd return back alive, and the strangely cold lady straddling him not only had him prisoner, but he could only move his hands and not his arms, so…
Already considering how to make it up to Akeno and the other girls, Yuuji gave the breasts in his hands a good squeeze.
Though the woman's expression didn't change, the pink that had been slowly spreading across her pale cheeks turned vivid, and her sclera began to flicker rapidly between white and black.
Five minutes after he'd woken up, Yuuji strolled out onto the balcony of the bedroom to see if he could figure out where he was, a bed sheet wrapped around his waist because he couldn't find any clothes other than the strange woman's robes.
The woman had spoken of her 'realm', and given that he was in a cave that seemed like it could fit Japan, Yuuji was confident he wasn't on Earth anymore.
The balcony overlooked a strange, sprawling city that seemed to be entirely built around, or into, colossal stalagmites of dull green crystal, the same sort of crystal that the room and balcony were made out of.
Save the tendrils of mist coiling around the tips of the spire, visibility was strangely good- the streets and doorways far below were illuminated with what looked sort of like lanterns or lampposts, but even though it must have countless miles above, Yuuji could see the ceiling of the cavern clearly.
It was like the default level of lighting within the cave itself, free of any light source, was naturally dim rather than dark.
Given that the woman had referenced 'Midgard' and they were in a giant cave, it narrowed his guesses down somewhat, but beyond that, one thing stood out.
The gentle hustle and bustle of countless people going about their daily lives could be heard from far below.
A city that seemed so strange to his eyes had found its own 'ordinary'.
… That was something to appreciate.
Such a lovely brute, her chosen was.
She had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't have been much gentler with her if she'd revealed that he was the first man to lay hands on her, but the chance of being pitied wasn't zero, and thus she had taken no chances.
But 'lay hands on her' was all he'd done… not in the sense that he'd taken the implied offer of her virginity, but that the hands she herself had allowed access to her bosom had been enough for him to bring her to orgasm, and the bindings must have failed when her conscious mind had failed also.
Contrary to her expectations, he hadn't gone far, just to the balcony, where he stood overlooking the realm she was so proud of.
Letting the drape of her hair conceal her bare breasts, and the position of her legs conceal the bare minimum below, she leaned against the wide threshold, firmly within the edge of his peripheral vision.
For a moment, she found herself feeling vexed that he took no notice of her presence, but that vexation quickly vanished under her own scrutiny.
It was faint, but…
As he gazed over her city with keen eyes as if to take in everything at once, the corners of his lips were curled upwards into a smile.
And thus, she allowed him to observe uninterrupted.
With a smile of her own, the Goddess of the realm watched with interest as her honored guest admired her kingdom from far above it.
It had been maybe a little rude of him to leave her hanging after she'd recovered, but the woman hadn't seemed to mind, so Yuuji hadn't stressed about it.
From the joints and seams of his metal arm, a plume of gunmetal mist leaked out, forming two swirling pillars at his side.
Inwardly surprised, Yuuji turned his head to find Juno and Lamb standing at his side.
"Hey."
"Yuuji!" Lamb softly exclaimed, embracing him tightly and then almost immediately pushing him to arm's length so that her big eyes could examine his body for injuries.
Juno for his part gave a long sigh, scratching his head ruefully.
"Gave us a real scare, kid, good to see you up and about at last."
"Sorry to worry you."
Before anything more could be said, the two Echoes seemed to take notice of the naked woman leaning against the wall, who had watched them in silence with a fond hint of a smile.
Yuuji was admittedly pretty curious as to why the two were looking so… solid, but more than that, it was their reactions to the woman that demanded his attention.
Lamb took the hem of her short skirt and flared it slightly in a grateful courtesy, and Juno snapped to attention with a sharp salute.
"Pardon us, Milady," Lamb said.
"Excuse us there, Ma'am." Juno said.
"Ah, Eumene, Carter," The woman greeted. "I was wondering where the two of you had wandered off to, have the others been treating you well?"
Yuuji didn't know which was the bigger surprise, what she'd called the two of them, or how affectionate she seemed.
Through the Arsenal, as the two Echoes flinched Yuuji could feel a bewildered surge of joy from the both of them, like they'd just had a dozen surprise birthdays all at once.
"... Those are your real names, aren't they?" Yuuji muttered softly.
"Haha… yeah… yeah… she… she knows…" Juno, or rather Carter, trailed off with a stilted laugh, blue eyes wide.
"All of us, Yuuji… all of us," Lamb, or rather Eumene whispered softly, reverently.
The cold beauty gazed at him with even more intensity than before, gold shining fiercely in the deep darkness of her eyes.
"Life offers suffering enough," she declared firmly. "Those forgotten, those forsaken… here within these halls, they shall know peace. All those cast aside, whether by gods or fate, in death I shall grant them sanctuary."
As she spoke, she pushed herself off the wall and stood to her full commanding height, her words brought forth with a weight that surpassed the physical.
"I am Hela, Goddess of the Dead, and by my will, you spirits of the nameless dead shall be nameless no longer."
Yuuji felt the shift, within the darkness of his mind.
Though only two of them were visible, every soul in the Arsenal was bowing their heads to the Goddess who had reached out her hands to lift them up from obscurity.
This… wasn't a debt to be repaid…. It wasn't a debt that anyone could ever repay.
This was a goddess bestowing a miracle to those whose prayers had never once been answered.
So with that in mind, it was incredibly impressive that the cheerfully smiling Goddess managed to speak her next words, without making them seem like blatant coercion.
"So, Kazami Yuuji," she began, gaze a little eager but still drawing her words out teasingly, "Feel like becoming mine now?"
Just stacking up those new characters, huh?
Sorry Roygun, but Hela is a bit more significant to the story, though Roygun will certainly have her time.
Just in case we have anyone well-versed on Norse mythology reading, I chose to use the name 'Hela' rather than 'Hel' to avoid confusion of terms with all the Biblical terminology being tossed around.
Speaking of names, Lamb's real name, Eumene, is actually easy enough to pronounce, it's (you- me- nay).
And yeah, it's mildly monumental that Hela knows all the Arsenal Spirits by name.
This chapter is quite possibly the most important chapter of the story, and it actually had less to do with Heath Oslo than you might have expected.
Part of what made Oslo 'still a big deal' was that Yuuji didn't realize that the man lost the qualifications to be his opponent like… 30 or so chapters ago?
Even at the seat of his power, Heath Oslo was a small fry in this setting, and only the admittedly justifiable excuse of Yuuji's trauma ever made him seem otherwise.
But overcoming Heath Oslo never had much to do with 'power' to begin with, so let's not downplay it.
Also, I've thought this before, but having a protagonist like Yuuji is a justifiable reason to just blatantly skip large amounts of exposition, because we're seeing the story from his perspective and he just does not care.
So everything that he breezed by did have a proper explanation, (like where Oslo got a 'toy' to cancel Sacred Gears, dammit Yuuji that was important haha) and all those explanations are at the bottom of the ocean.
Yumiko and Roygun though will have some proper context and backstory when they return, and when they return, they'll be around to stay.
As for Hela and Jormungandr (Big Brother Jorm, for those uncertain), they're important for one of the final arcs of this story.
Though I say final, I'm still expecting this story to be around for most of if not all of this year, but we'll see how things go.