In this chapter Issei uses THESE HANDS to reinstate gender equality.
[{Nameless}]
"Ah…" He stirred from his drowsed state and shook his head. The sensation of a new signature… it was worrying.
He turned his head in its direction and calculated the approximate distance, Seven million miles, Asia, Japan, Kuoh.
…Kuoh?
That was mildly concerning.
He plucked the orange flower gently from its bush, making sure not to damage it as it went inside his basket.
It was barely half full, seven flowers were inside the old, wooden basket of Old-German make. This one made the eighth. He still had four to collect.
He could make a detour… no, that'd delay the day.
Staring off into the distance again, he calculated something else— well, estimated, more like, since he already knew her location.
Kuoh's not in range. He couldn't do anything about it from here without large scale damage and he preferred to keep mass scale neutralisation to the minimum.
Hm…
What to do…
…
.
.
He sighed after a moment. Then grumbled to himself.
"Right. That's him." How could he forget about that possibility? Had it been that long? Probably.
Well, as long as its awakening didn't hurt him or destroy anything surrounding him, everything would be fine. It was non-noticable when it happened after all.
He took a step forward and fell down the mountain, into the clouds below after closing his basket shut and he thought for a while free-falling.
If it was awakened by force, though…
Hazy images of a half-rotten corpse melded with mercury rampaging through a bloody field of bodies surfaced in his mind.
Emerald and Sapphire eyes glaring up at him radiating pure rage.
A beast with fragmented thin, blood coloured wings roaring at the world that was it's creation
…A shattered sky and earth. A boy fragmented, staring at him with an emotion he did not remember.
He shook his head.
He'd check after picking up the last flowers. A failsafe was already put into place to minimise the damage… if there was any damage in the first place.
He'd fix the damage if there were any.
For now though…
"Wings."
Brilliant platinum butterflies flew towards the south, towards the United Kingdom in the pattern unnoticed by all.
They blended in with the world, barely appearing to exist to the human eyes as they fluttered towards their destination.
For humanity and the legends they sang these butterflies were nothing but stray winds, invisible to the eye yet still causing change.
They were right that they caused change.
They were wrong in that they existed in the first place.
…
[Issei Hyoydou]
Burning. Burning. Burning. Everything inside me was heated like steel in a forge.
I felt my skin tear and pull itself back together, my muscles burn themselves out and regain that lost energy in a second, my bones being crushed then rebuilt even stronger.
I felt myself break. I felt myself being rebuilt.
It felt like hours. I knew only seconds had gone by before the metaphorical flames dissipated and I was left staring at the violet moon.
All my wounds were healed. I felt… exhausted.
Could I even move?
"{Yes.}"
Huh…
The fingers of my right hand twitched.
I took a breath and let a warm sensation spread throughout my body.
"All… right."
Then I noticed my right hand.
…when did I get a gauntlet?
*—CLANG!*
I could hear the spear coming. My arm had moved before I could make it, instinctively. My entire body rotated and I was now able to see the woman who had stabbed me with the yellow light spear.
Oh.
Bozongazongs.
Mammary Glands. Large Mammary Glands.
Boobies.
"{Damn the consequences the Scale has already been tilted…}"
A dumb, manic smile spread on my face. So wide and so big that it was on the verge of tearing my lips.
That was a sexy woman if I'd ever seen one.
"Ha… hehe… heheHAHAHAHA! BOOBIES!"
Bending my knees I. JUMPED.
…
The gauntlet went upto his wrist. Ruby metal wrapped around his hand like it was fully apart of the flesh. The oval shaped emerald carved into its centre shining in the violet moonlight as he moved. The shape of its front end was hemispherical, slightly jutting out to cover his knuckles. The back was spiked lightly.
The front of his palm was left uncovered with the heavy plating that bulked up the entirety of his hand, being only covered with light plating with a small opening in the middle. His fingers were the only thing left uncovered.
It was, in all honesty, impractical. Too impractical to be used as an actual gauntlet, or hand guard.
It was too bulky, the weight offset his balance, the jewel literally just looked like it was there for decoration (it is not).
For anyone else it was just an impractical weapon to use.
For one Issei Hyoydou it was a portable, blunt guillotine.
He flew into the blue haired woman like a jet and slammed his right fist at her neck. The woman tried to dodge but the sheer speed bypassed her attempt to put up a defence. The blunt end of his gauntlet dragged the woman with him as he flew forward. The skin of her neck was like metal, he could have decapitated someone with that hit but the woman was dragged and slammed into a wall several feet behind instead. He flew in the air for a moment, then his grin somehow grew larger.
The woman choked out splatters of blood onto his gauntlet. Her eyes locked onto his.
Got you. Her eyes almost seemed to say as a spear of light manifested behind her and—
Issei grabbed onto her boobs and threw himself towards the ground. His right hand scraping down her neck and pressing into the fleshy mounds for a moment before it was by his crouched side again as the spear of light flew over his head. He forced all his pressure down onto his legs, his arms curled beside his torso.
He jumped. The woman stumbled back and tried to block with both hands.
*Sqwrck-!*
Her fingers broke.
Her nose shattered.
Issei's gauntlet shattered through her measly defence and smashed into her face- right into her nose, slightly beneath her eyes.
She screamed. Issei slammed his right hand down in a chopping motion. Was that another crack I heard?
Her knees buckled as she released a blood-curdling scream that did not seem to phase him in the slightest.
He rotated his arm around once- He grabbed her by the scalp- And slammed her down onto his knee!
*Ckrr-rk!*
Once.
*Ckrr-rk!*
Twice.
*Ckrr-rk!*
Thrice.
*Ckrr-rk!*
Fourth time.
*Ckrr-rk!*
Five. Her bloodied face pulled away, far from unconsciousness but in far more pain that a human could endure glared up at him. Her broken teeth falling to the ground as she opened her mouth to speak- scream,
"DHONASEE—"
*S-laqrck!"
"Do banshees exist too?" Issei asked the question innocently as he outright crushed her head into the pavement below, completely ignoring the four wings that had sprouted like blooming black flowers from her back— well, not ignored as he grabbed one of them with an intrigued look.
"Whoa… it's so stiff…" He looked like an awestruck child. His eyes shining like green stars as he started examining the wings while completely ignoring the woman he had slammed to the ground
He was so awestruck that, he- oh, nevermind he grabbed the wing that was about to stab him. Anyways-
*Sr'rk!*
He couldn't grab the second. The third. And the fourth as they stabbed into his torso like knives into rusted steel… did that make sense?
"A..ah… that's…" He took a look down at his stabbed torso and his smile became childish. "That's soo fucking cool~!"
…
Ah, this house was so peaceful. It was dark, cold, in another dimension and far, far away from the idiots fighting.
The T.V was only playing static noise, the filled bathtub was filled with black, cold water. The small trees on the lawn looked like they were burned to cinder.
Ah, so peaceful, so horrid, so—
The blue haired woman crashed through the walls of the house and Issei followed suit.
Rows upon rows of yellow spears of light were dodged, blocked or outright tanked by the boy using his right arm as a shield as the woman screamed bloody murder at him while using her wings to manoeuvre herself inside the cramped space.
She broke the walls, the tables, the roof- no wait Issei grabbed onto her leg and smashed her body into the floor before she could do that.
Issei, even with three holes clotted up but still leaking blood from his torso, smiled like a maniac as he threw the woman like a baseball into the bathroom. The force of the throw shattered the plating of the bathroom floor, the woman skidded to a stop by stabbing two of her wings into the floor and turned her head- only to be met with a kick to the face that smashed her into the filled bathtub and broke it entirely.
The water helped to soften the impact, mostly, but the impact was hard enough that she was now bleeding from her forehead, several shards of the broken bathtub stabbing into her face but not quite damaging her or making her bleed for that matter.
Well…
"Huh?" *Sla-kr'ck!* Not until Issei kicked her again.
"What does…" *Sla-kr'ck!* And again.
"...'ignore logic' even mean?" *Sla-kr'ck!* And again.
"I've been doing that the entire time!" If her face was not a bloody pulp by now it was because Issei was talking to the giant snake in his head and not particularly paying attention to her. She groaned out a bloody breath, using her wings like arms to pull herself out of the creater that was now perfectly moulded for her head.
"Took long enough."
Issei looked down at her for a moment before rapidly turning to deflect a blue spear of light that had been thrown at him from several houses away.
He grabbed her by the collar of her jacket and lifted her up without even looking. Her wings tried to stab at him but he grabbed one using his other arm and—
*Crack!*
She felt her vocal chords burn as she screamed louder than she ever had when her wings snapped like twigs.
She'd been doing that a lot, huh.
"Please don't go Doc Oc on me, miss blue boobs."
…she didn't respond. Not like she could with her wings being destroyed. The pain of it was too much. Those wings were made of both bone and magical energy, not mana mind you but actual Fallen Angel Magical Energy. They were essentially part of her soul.
Issei lifted her infront of himself in one swift motion— a blue spear of light dissipated right before making contact with her body.
"Friendly fire's turned off, eh?" Issei chuckled and began running.
He used the woman's body like a shield, pinning it in front of himself as he ran and leapt through the destroyed house in large steps. Blue spears whizzed past him, always so close yet so far from even grazing him as the woman's bigger body provided him with the best meat shield he could ask for.
He leapt above a wooden fence and threw the woman at a surprised Dhonaseek who was readying another volley of spears one house away.
"Kala—"
His eyes widened a split second before Kalawarner crashed into him. The two of them were sent flying and both skidded to a stop on the road as Dhonaseek desperately used his wings to anchor himself and his subordinate to the concret—
Issei's smiling face was the first thing he saw before a heavy knee to the chin rocked his skull, two jabs rocked his ribs and Issei slammed his open left palm into his chest.
Sound exploded as the palm made contact and both the Fallen were pushed back several feet on their knees. Dhonaseek's knees were grinded to bloody, skinless limbs as he struggled to grasp a breath, Kalawarna was barely keeping herself conscious.
"Oi!" Issei called out while flailing his left hand around uselessly. "That fucking hurt! You guys wanna have a time out or somethin!?"
Yes. Because your left hand getting numbed for a few minutes was worse than getting stabbed in the torso three times at once
"Ka… fuck… what the hell is… that sacred… gear?" Dhonaseek grasped out as he barely stood on scraped knees and a hurting lower half, dropping the destroyed Kalawarna to her feet. She spat out ceramic shards and a few teeth, her destroyed face crunching into pure hatred as… damn, I don't think I can do justice to the muscle and skin damage. The only things that were remotely working were her eyes. Her facial muscles were almost torn, just like her skin upto her scalp.
"Nko frugking igika." She barely spoke out from still hurting and almost crushed vocal cords. Then she… uh… well, she tried to yell. "BGT I'KM GOFCING TGO—"
A splatter of blood exited her mouth after that. She turned her eyelidless —not exactly, they're just not working — bloodied eyes to Issei and let out a silent scream.
—Twelve yellow spears of light shaking in pure rage manifested and circled behind her broken wings, all pointed at Issei who was rummaging around his pockets, not even paying attention to her and Dhonaseek.
"Gha… tsk… don't think we can even… run…" Dhonaseek readied himself best he could with cracked ribs, torn knees and a hurting lower body. His four wings spread behind his back, almost unknowingly mocking Kalawarna's once four now three wings and four blue spears manifested, all ready to strike at Issei who pulled out a closed fist and readied himself in… concentrating punching stance?
Hm? Why was he grasping onto his left wrist with his right hand?
More importantly, why was he screaming like he was going to go Super Sayan for the first time?
…
Jourmangandr-chan! Can you make me another gauntlet? Please! Pleasepleasepleasepleaseple-
"{Do it yourself.}"
I can't just do that ya'know! I don't have enough wood! Or a sword to carve the shape out! Or the means to actually make another gauntlet!
"{Think about it.}"
Think? I haven't been doing that for the last few minutes!
"{Then continue doing that until you make a bat from the piece of wood you unceremoniously tore off.}"
Hm? Wood? Oh- yeah! That! Forgot about that, for the tip!
"{Ddraig, when are you taking over again…?}"
…
Sixteen spears of two different colours shot at him like sniper bullets.
He grasped the piece of wood in his hand as hard as he possibly could.
All the spears moved around to different locations and surrounded him from everywhere, including from the top while still moving.
Four metres.
Gauntlet!
Three metres.
Gauntlet!
Two metres.
GAUNTLET!
One. Metre.
GAUNTLETT!
*Kr-chck-!*
The piece of wood in his hand broke from his grip.
[Resonance!]
Everything happened in a split second.
A bright glow of rainbow light shone out from his left fist.
His right arm lifted by itself and his opened palm faced the red skies.
His eyes shone a dull bluish-green.
*Pop!*
-And a two metre long black bat spiked with wood chips all over its surface grew out from the grip of his left hand as he swung upwards at the small brown oval shaped object resembling a seed that had shot out from the hole in the middle of his palm.
An echoing voice shouted out from within the glowing green gem of his right hand.
"{Mjölguard - 3%!}"
"{Sunflare Seeds!}"
The world was blinded by flames.
"{Blanket of Charred Ash.}"
Burning splinters and chips of wood released from the swing finished their charring and were reduced to ash floating in the wind. Issei held his breath and rotated his upper body to swing his burning bat in a full circle.
The ash spread like a wave around his burning bat as he spun around and created a whirlwind that blocked all sight of him, except for the ever-burning yellow flame that lighted his bat.
Just call it smokescreen, Jourmangandr-chan.
"Ah, poo. I wanted a gauntlet, not a bat."
And the stealth, was optional, after all.
He crouched inside the thinly veiled smokescreen as several spears of light flew past him and closed his eyes, increasing the pressure put on his legs as much as he could without breaking them.
He could not see them, they could barely see him.
Welp.
Luck it is.
*S'crack- BOOM!*
He released his breath then pushed off the ground, cracking the pavement below as the world blurred around him. The flaming bat he held in his hand was at the ready to swing at any moment— the whirlwind of smoke exploded as he threw the bat towards the female Fallen at blurring speeds.
…
"KALA!" Dhonaseek yelled out a warning as a plume of glowing ash shot out from the thin smokescreen like a high calibre bullet at his comrade.
The bluenette whipped her head to the incoming attack and thrusted a newly formed blue light spear at it, screaming- or, well, attempting to scream in rage as her spear grated and clashed against the lone burning bat. Sparks of magical energy flaked off from both weapons as they went at each other, two forces colliding and pushing each other back as the flames and the light burned each other to… huh? Issei was nowhere to be seen holding the bat, nor… anywhere around the bat, actually.
As the ash receded with their clash, Kalawarna's eyes bulged and snapped to Dhonaseek.
His eyes only conveyed a singular word as they met her's,
Fuck.
—Issei's smiling figure appeared behind him, bursting forth from the smokescreen at inhuman speeds and ready to execute the Fallen with his right arm.
"I don't really like using a bat."
Dhonaseek's cranium almost broke from the impact.
…
[Issei]
I grabbed ahold of the man's head as his body began to fall to the side and smashed it into the pavement.
I did it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Until I felt something crack. Then I lifted the almost lifeless yet still living body, bloodied all over the face, skin torn and muscles visible all over his torn forehead.
He could handle this much, I had judged.
So ignoring the throat tearing scream of despair from the blue haired woman I rotated by torso and threw.
It. At. Her.
Oh look, she was already charging at me.
Oh wait, she was charging at me.
She shrugged off her comrade crashing into her at speeds that would rival a leopard at its maximum speed, using pure rage to hover over the ground and fly forward with a broken wing, a five metre long blue lance in both hands ready to stab and a mouth wide open in a soundless roar.
I had no time to think, no time to properly react—
So I held my opened right hand out at her.
Well, let's see if I can shoot out a flashbang on command.
Hold on a second…
Wait a second, I just made a weird connection.
Sunflare? Sun Flare… Sunflower?
*Pop!*
A light brown seed pod shot out from the hole in the middle of my covered palm.
My eyes widened for a moment, then a wolfish grin spread over my face before I leaped back as the woman's bloody face scrunched up in confusion. Then her eyes widened so much that I thought she tore them.
The seed pod made contact with her forehead.
I saw the light cracking on the rough skin spreading until the pod was nothing but an oval of light contained inside fragments of a destroyed brown shell. I saw the flames barely leaking out at first, then raging into a torrent that promptly burned away its shell. I saw everything almost in slow motion, as the woman opened her mouth, as the shell that held a raging inferno within fully broke.
I saw, as the flames wrapped, burned and charred the woman's head. The flames burned unrestrained, yet they seemed to just wrap around the woman's head like they were hungry for flesh, like they were alive. It was almost horrifying, the way the flames seemed to choke the woman so that she could not scream, the way they burned and flaked off all of the skin on her face, the way the woman's still burning face opened her mouth but failed to scream from inside the flames— I felt sick— I felt like I was going to vomit— I-
"STOP!" I didn't want to kill anyone— no, no, no, that was supposed to be a flashblang—
*Srr'rk*
A spear of light rips through the sleeve of my left arm, barely grazing my skin as the woman flails in pain.
I remember that I am fighting two mystical creatures as the burning pain spreads through my arm. The part of my skin that came into contact with the spear was burned off— nothing was left in that small section, I could feel nothing in that small section. However the pain receptors all around it were blaring like they were being put under a rocket engine and being melted into my muscles.
It hurt. It really fucking hurt.
I reached out to grab her shoulders, her face and head were surprisingly still there— slightly burned but not charred like I thought they would be. Her hair had been burned off to a certain point- I didn't think she was going to grow it back at all. Her mouth was opened in a perpetual scream yet no sound came out. I could see the burned and red muscles of her face twitching and contracting- I was certain that the nerves below had been burned clean off.
But the most horrifying thing about her was her eyes- or the lack of them.
The orbs had been melted off. There was just… nothing left in her eye sockets except for the meatu darkness that lay underneath.
She looked like a skinned corpse. She was still breathing and conscious. The erratic movement of her wings, both broken and not-broken as well as the hammering of her heart that I could feel through my touch were proof of that…
*C-rrck!*
I knocked her out by slightly nudging her neck bones so that she would not feel any more pain.
"Jourmangandr- Jourmangandr! Heal her!"
"{Valoric Reserves at 40%}"
"I don't- I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! HEAL HER- I DON'T WANT TO KILL SOMEONE DAMANIT!"
"{Valoric Re—}"
"HEAL HER!"
"...Ha…"
The world stilled for a moment.
"Fine."
The voice inside my head spoke three words, three words I fully recognised;
"{Bloom, Lilyette Galinary}"
I felt something pop out of the small opening on my palm and along with it went all my stamina. My eyes widened as a small, pristine white seed pod gently landed on the woman's face and… crumbled to dust.
The glitters of dust glowed white, completely encompassing the woman's head in one smooth motion.
Then- the white shattered.
A beautiful face twisted into a horrid and pained scream and blue hair the colour of sapphire was revealed beneath the shattered white.
…
I felt exhausted.
I felt like a walking corpse.
Goddammit.
There's someone screaming. It's a male voice. Probably Dhoka- Dhonsa- Dhonaseek, yeah, that guy. He's probably running at me, he's probably going to kill me, for real this time.
I can't even move, right now. That sucks.
This really sucks, damnit, why'd I have to heal her… wait, is she even healed? I don't even know anymore.
My eyes are blurry. I can't even see properly. My movements are drunken, exhausted, I can't control them.
Damn. That sucks.
I just want to curl up and cry myself to sleep.
But that won't do right now.
I take a shaking breath.
I still want to collect every living organism present in this world. That's my childish dream, yes. It's an improbable, insane feat that is nigh-impossible. No one, except my mentor has been able to achieve my dream and I know he cheated in some way. To collect every living organism is a feat that requires that I travel every square inch of the world, map out every single habitat and location of every organism I saw and collected… wait, that's a bit too much… I just need to collect. I just needed to collect every living organism, discover new ones to collect and if the lands could not satisfy my curiosity I would have to venture into the seas.
But… right now…
His arms were going to swing. His body was off balance.
…What a pain.
…
The boy dodged the thrashing strike almost too easily. Dhonaseek raged, swinging his arm down with an accompanying blue spear. The boy slightly moved to the left, the attack missed. Dhonaseek swung his other arm at the boy from the side, another spear followed. The boy stepped back, the spear and punch missed barely. Dhonaseek charged forward, arm pulled back and holding onto a newly formed blue spear he launched another strike. The boy weaved to a side in a surreal, smooth motion.
Ah.
That was it.
The boy wrapped his arm around Dhonaseek's extended arm in a blur, leaving the fallen no time to react as—
*Crack!*
He dislocated Dhonaseek's arm like it was a twig, snapping the bones in an instant.
Dhonaseek swung with his other arm holding another blue spear, releasing a roar of pain as… the boy just walked forward and went behind Dhonaseek's back.
Oh. Right. The black wings stabbed at him ferociously. Forgot about them.
He ducked, he took a step back, he weaved to the left- to the right, he twirled around, he backfliped over another stab, he grabbed- oh, the feathers were sharp… when did they get sharpened?
He ran forward, completely avoiding the wings until he reached a wall, several metres away from the Fallen.
"...any chance we can end this peacefully? Your ally's healed. You can just leave me alone, ya'know."
The Fallen spun to him and froze for a moment.
Run? "Pfft- haha…" A bitter laugh left his mouth, if it could even be called a laugh. The sound he made was laced with so much despair that it was hard to tell if he was laughing or crying. "'Leave'? You say?"
He had considered that, the moment his subordinate had one of her wings snapped. He had considered to just drag her away and fly as far as he could to the safehouse they had temporarily claimed as their own… Kalawarna's rage would probably fade away after a while of angry screams but she could have been healed, then. She wasn't burned to half death then. They had [Twilight Healing] in their possession damnit.
But then the boy unleashed something. Something that he vaguely felt, was familiar to him.
The moment Kalawarna's head was being melted he only had the choice to fight till he died because he knew there was no escaping the creature that they had unleashed.
The bat that the boy had manifested along with the crown of flames that blinded them held no trace of magical energy. Meaning they were of sacred gear origin or…
His eyes widened momentarily.
No, no, that's impossible. That entity's abilities were apart of [Der Erste von Elf]. That sacred gear had not been seen in literal aeons.
And that gauntlet was definitely a sacred gear but what…?
A… sub-species?
Damnit.
Damnit! This mission was a failure from the beginning!
The idea of escape was shut down the moment they accepted this mission, huh? Fight or not, they were dead either way.
The idea of escaping, even after the boy had healed Kalawarna was oh so tempting. But they were guaranteed a painful death if he did that.
He grit his teeth and raised his blue spear at the boy's bored and foggy eyes. Two more appeared from motes of light beside him.
They should have never followed Kokabiel to that place.
A quick death it is, then.
…
[Issei]
…I sighed.
Well, not like I didn't expect this after all. But the blue spear pointing at me was annoying none-the less.
Snake, where's the bat.
"{...You will collapse in three movements.}"
…I'll finish up. Three were enough to end this… fight. Could it really be called that anymore?
I saw a grey object spinning towards me like a boomerang from my left. I extended an open arm to the left. The man charged forward with a shout, the two spears beside him flying forward before he launched his body.
One.
I caught the ba— it shattered into several plate-like pieces as it made contact with my hand. The plates swirled around my entire arm into my shoulder, folding and twisting into different shapes before shooting down onto my arm. Small grey wood plates stuck to my fingers, they gradually got larger as they travelled up my arm, culminating in a large piece of spiked wooden plaiting that slightly bulged out from the rest of the platings. Small spikes rose from the platings around my knuckles, the wooden platings spiralled around on the back of my hand until they formed a slight pit that somehow didn't touch my hand. The wooden platings covering my fingers slightly spiked at the tips, almost forming claws if not for the bulky platings of the hand from which said claws protruded from. This all happened in a second's time. I stared blankly at my new… weapon and sighed again.
I wanted to use the bat.
I pulled my arm back and took a step forward. The man was five feet away.
Two.
I took a breath. My body burned. The man was three feet away. Rapidly approaching, his spears would stab me before me himself would fall. I couldn't dodge. I had to retaliate. I didn't have the energy to dodge… I exhaled.
The spears stabbed.
The man was twelve inches away from me.
One.
"{Mjölguard - Wooden Hide}"
I swung down.
"{Disperse.}"
My fist slammed down on the man's head like a hammer onto nail. My… arm-guard, if I could even call it that, shattered into an explosion of harmless splinters with the impact. A resulting shockwave made the splinters shoot out like pin-missiles all over the area, but that was unnecessary. The fight was already over.
I looked down at the man's body. His head was deeply embedded into the concrete by my punch, hiding his deformed and bloodied face. The only thing signalling that he was alive was the shallow breaths I could faintly hear.
Atleast… that worked. I tried to take a step forward- I instantly fell to the ground.
You know that feeling when you feel the entire world just faded away and you begin to fall to certain yet non-certain doom in one of your dreams?
Yeah. Imagine that happening to me right now because that was what it felt like falling with no energy to even take a breath.
Everything just… seemed to fade away. The sky, the clouds, the sun, my gauntlet(s), the energy that had been surrounding me since the red gauntlet had appeared, my sight, my ability to feel… all just disappeared.
My sense of sound was the last to go. A few moments after my consciousness.
That was the only thing that made me feel safe, as I heard the shout of someone I knew I could trust to… ah, wait. He works with the student council.
I am dead either way….
"Oi! Sci-fi-perv- ISSEI!?"
I promptly went unconscious.
…
"Hallelujah! Take that you fat cat!" The world was covered in ice, flames, grass, mud, toxic waste, sour patch kids, water, earth, clouds, boobs, ambrosia, sacred gears, eyes, legs, ears, arms, blood—
It kept shifting and changing with each passing moment, never staying the same. A sensory overload would have killed anyone that saw the ever-changing world for even a second but the creature brutally dissecting and crushing the ever-changing everything around it did not seem to care in the slightest.
He was covered in wounds, scars, lactations, burns, frostbite, mould, he was rotting, he was crumbling to dust, hisbloodwassolidifyinghisskinwasliquifyinghisentirebodywasmeltinghisboneswerebrea—
Every injury that he could sustain was being cast upon his body. His body was host to injuries and diseases that could not be described. His body was host to the eldritch and godly madness. His body was host to parasites. His body was a goat. His body was shattering like glass. His body was being torn apart molecule by molecule.
All this from one injury. A single, small, almost non-existent scratch on his leg caused by the Chaotic Creature that was Cath Palug.
Extatic. He was fucking extatic.
This meal. Would be a feast
He crouched. Body undergoing change each microsecond but he did not falter.
"Four seconds have pas—"
His throat became a goose.
[Access Granted]
He reached into his inner core and pulled!
His grin blended into his face as a canopy of pulsating red veins exploded out from within his chest and wrapped around his entire body.
If he had his throat, and if his liver wasn't current undergoing mitosis, he would have said 'Fucking Finally' as loud as he could.
But his throat was a goose now and his liver was undergoing mitosis, so all he could do was widen his eyes like a madman and throw his head back.
Then he shouted in his mind with all that he could muster, popping a blood vessel.
[Half
Release:
World Eater
Percipitate]
The pulsating red veins and lines sped up their beats all around his torso.
His long, glowing, sky coloured hair blended into his scalp.
His fingers became claws of red and sky-blue energy.
His feet became spikes of electric blue. His eyes expanded and his pupils expanded, leaving only red that almost seemed to flow into his head as it turned to a mass of sky-blue energy barely retaining it's head-like shape.
His torso was replaced by the same energy, only the red veins encircling and entrapping it, and every part of his now fluid-like body into a physical shape even as the energy flowed back like fading mist from the large areas unrestrained by the red bindings.
He lurched, his 'jaw' flew open from his 'mouth'.
What laid inside could only be described as 'A spiralling abyss of canine teeth'.
The broken and shattered mass that he used to call a weapon was long since turned into a pile of candies by the damned cat, it had taken him this long to take this fight seriously just because that bastard wanted 'tactical info' whatever that meant.
Now, His body lunged at the cat that was now approximately nine hundred and seventy two point one eight five six miles away even as it was changed into everything else that would have come under 'existance'.
He reached his destination in one second. He bit down at his meal the next second.
It's time for a feast!
"!_!_—!—!—!—!—!"
The creature screamed as it's entire left half, it's left half that had been the size of Mount Myoboku, it's left half that could withstand the impact of twelve nuclear warheads at that moment, was bitten into and torn from its ever-changing body like it was nothing but meat.
To him it was nothing but meat. Meat was food. And food would satisfy his hunger.
So fuck all the things going all around him and fuck the world becoming a hazardous conglomerate of nuclear waste that could probably cover the entire world six hundred times over.
It was food so it could be eaten.
He could tear, rip, grind, chew, break, slice, cleave, mix and swallow it. Hence it was food.
And he fucking llllooooovvvvvveeeddddddddd food.
So there he went. Sinking his claws into the creature that was manipulating his mouth shut every time he tore it open to eat and eat and eat.
His mouth was gone? No matter, he'd just split open his eyes and make them his mouths. It did not matter for their taste, as long as he could see them they were food.
Oh? His eyes, they no longer existed. Good thing he went into this form before the cat did that. He'd have to tear open new ones… somewhere. Preferably near his cheek.
Now he'd have to make his left hand his mouth
Tear. Tear. Tear. Tear. Rip. Rip. Rip. Rip. Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow.
He tore and tore and tore and tore and tore and tore andtoreandtoreandtoreandtoreandtoreandtoreandtoreandtoreandtore…
For what felt like eternities he tore and ate. He tore and ate. Each time the taste was different, sometimes he did not even taste anything but he knew he was eating.
His arms had turned to dust. He'd created new ones. His legs had been turned to burning twigs with dead squirrels burrowing into them. He ate the squirrels and formed new legs using his Veloric Release. His torso had been erased from this reality. He ate the erased space until his torso was able to reform.
He never stopped eating. His hunger never stopped fading.
Then, all of a sudden, without any indication, his meal was finished.
…As he stared down at the bloody depression left on the floor, pooling with rainbow blood, he was pulled back into reality.
"Oh come on. You can't be that weak right? Cath? Come on, Cath? Hey, I'm still hungry you fat fuck. Cath! CCCAAAAATTTTTHHHH!"
He spat out the blob of furry meat inside his mouth and screamed. Smash, smash, smash, the blob of meat was now mixed with the grass and dirt.
Huh? What? Grass and…
Wait, he'd wrecked the place hadn't he? Shouldn't it be… ya'know, covered in blood and… wait, he ate everything else. This place should be an ocean of blood by now.
Why the hell was he knee deep in Cath Paste? (It's literally just blood, he ate everything)
…And why is everything so dark?
He lifted his head up to look at the sky. To gauge if it was day or night.
.
.
.
Oh.
He was only met with a colossal mass of metal that loomed over and blocked the entire sky with its sheer size.
It levitated there. And he could have mistaken it for the night sky but… well, he could sense when something was in the night sky and something wasn't.
Night vision was also helping.
"...oh… [Rvert]." He was fucked anyways. Guess I figured out why everything's so… bloodless right now. Keeping [Sphere] permanently active is cheating.
His body returned to its normal state. His hair retired to its original length, his eyes returned to having pupils instead of just being pure red, the energy that was his body returned to his inner core and his tan skin returned onto his physical shape.
He kept staring at the sky of death and let out a small laugh.
"Fucking bastards." He bent his knees beneath the pool of blood and pushed.
"BASTARDS SAID I WAS OUTSIDE THE KILL ZONE!"
He leapt to his doom, knowing he could not eat one of his actual creations.
The continental silver sword slowly began to fall.
.
.
.
.
"Would you like some assistance?"
.
.
.
The only response was a rage filled roar as the uneadable mass of 'steel' tore burned everything in its path into cinder.
…
Interlude up next, it's a brief introduction and explanation of Jourmangandr's world and its systems.