Chapter 34: The Demon vs The Monster

"To fight like a demon, you must become a monster."

"W-what's going on?!" Metta yelled in a panicked tone. Her worry wasn't unwarranted, as the whole arena shook like an earthquake.

"Look!" Eight pointed in the distance.

To the group's horror, they witnessed thousands of salmonids ascend to the sky from the metropolis. A majority of the salmonids were either Chinooks or Snatchers, but there were quite a few Flyfish as well.

Finally, the cause of the arena shaking showed itself—or rather, themselves.

Similar to how there was a swarm of flier-type salmonids, many of the lesser and flightless boss salmonids started appearing from the sides of the arena. They had climbed their way up.

All the salmonids had two things in common: They were converging on the group, and their eyes were bright red.

"What's wrong with them?!" Nakji questioned with a fearful expression plastered on her face.

"I-I don't know!" Eight snapped her head in a different direction. "WATCH OUT!"

Everyone turned just in time to see Sal lunge for them with a rage-filled roar.

Akikta barely caught Sal by the chest before using his strength to toss the large bastard away. Sal crashed into the oncoming horde of salmonids, knocking quite a few of them away in the process.

The charging salmonids had a crazed look in their eyes; They seemed to be moving much faster than usual, too.

"They've gone crazy!" Akikta blurted, watching Misaki throw a splat bomb into a nearby crowd.

"No, they've gone into a frenzy!" Eight shouted, looking up as a group of Flyfish fired a barrage of ink missiles at them. Akikta expanded his left arm into a large blanket, absorbing the missiles and keeping the others safe from further air attacks.

"Doesn't that only happen when there are glowflies?" Metta questioned, splatting three chums with her bow. "What's making them so aggressive?!"

"It was that roar," Akikta stated, punching a cohock so hard it flew into another cohock. "Sal's gotten them all riled up!"

Nakji grumbled. "Just what we needed." She slashed the air, sending out an arc of ink that struck a Steelhead's fully formed bomb, causing it to explode into a massive puddle of ink. Dozens of other salmonids near the Steelhead went out with it.

"Watch out!" Misaki hollered.

Akikta whipped around to see a chum leap at him with its mouth opened wide. He reacted quickly, spinning and kicking the salmonid back into the swarm.

After dealing with the attacker, Akikta was left confused. The chum had broken through their little circle, and despite being closest to Misaki, it completely ignored her and went for him. Soon, Akikta noticed strange behavior coming from the salmonids.

Despite their frenzy, the flying-type salmonids didn't attack the idols, who had long since stopped singing and watched in horror at what was happening below. Even Boris kept trying to dive-bomb the arena, completely ignoring his own battle.

Similarly, the salmonids on the ground often ignored critical openings within an agent's stance, opting to go for Akikta instead. In fact, many of the salmonids that came close to him were much more aggressive than they were with anyone else.

The only salmonid unaffected by Sal's roar was Little Buddy, who kept intercepting Boris. It was easy since Boris refused to acknowledge Little Buddy at all, giving the transformed smallfry plenty of opportunities to inflict damage on the black serpent.

Akikta quickly put two and two together. "They're after me!"

He declared before breaking the circle formation by sprinting away from the agents.

"Aki!" Nakji called out, reaching her hand out to Akikta, but she was too late. He had already cleared a path for himself by extending both arms out and pushing aside the salmonids coming at him.

As Akikta got deeper into the horde, the salmonids ignored the agents as expected and maneuvered around them.

The salmonids rushed at Akikta from every direction, giving him barely any time to react to their frantic attacks. He ended up transforming his arms into weapons—one an axe and the other a sword. Then he morphed his feet into roller skates and spun.

Many of the lessers blindly ran into Akikta as he spun, getting sliced into large pieces as a result. Their blood splattered onto his body, strengthening him.

He stopped spinning and sped through the sea of salmonids. It was utter chaos as Flyfish missiles narrowly missed him, Steelhead bombs went off everywhere, and plenty of Maws kept jumping out to eat him whole. Nothing could touch him as he let his instincts take over, flipping, sliding, and jumping over every sign of danger while slicing any salmonid that was too slow to avoid him.

Suddenly, an arm popped out of nowhere, closelining Akikta and sending him tumbling hard to the ground.

His weapons shifted back into hands as he rolled across the floor. Then, a group of chum and cohocks descended upon him like rabid dogs, biting and hitting him all over his body. The sharp pain made Akikta yell. In response, his eight braids became shrouded in black ink; then, like whips, they lashed out at all the salmonids on him, slicing through them like butter.

With each salmonid Akikta killed, his overall strength continued to grow. This caused a snowball effect that eventually allowed him to overpower all the salmonids pinning him down.

He forced all the salmonids off him, then got up and faced the direction the arm popped out from. There was only one person an arm amongst a sea of ravenous salmonids could belong to.

And sure enough, there he was in all his shameful glory. Sal, the lord of the salmonids.

When the two locked eyes, Sal let out a ferocious roar and wildly charged at Akikta, pushing and trampling any salmonid who didn't get out of his way. Normally, such a sight would frighten Akikta, but honestly, he was tired of running. Besides, he meant what he said. Sal dies here and now.

"You want a piece of me?! COME ON THEN!" Akikta cried out, thickening the ink covering his limbs.

Seconds later, Sal collided his fist with Akikta's face, but not before Akikta did the same to Sal. Their punches were scarily hard—so much so, both of them were forced to face opposite directions due to the other's fist pushing them.

Sal's punch hurt like hell, but not as much as the seething hatred Akikta had for him, which was dying to be unleashed like a plague.

With a bloodcurdling shout, Akikta brought his other fist and smashed it into Sal's puffed-out chest.

He grunted before returning a haymaker of his own into Akikta's chest, knocking the wind out of him. Sal's punches were devastatingly more powerful than before, but Akikta didn't relent.

The two went blow for blow, and each hit that landed only made the other angrier. Their punches were so violent that the others could hear the reverberating smacks and pounds, even at a distance.

The idols on the flying stage shouted down to the battlefield. Akikta was too focused on the fight to tell if they were cheering for him or yelling at him to run away.

Additionally, Akikta could hear the various gunfire and splat bombs going off in the background, presumably from the other agents trying to get to him. Evidently, they made no progress. That was probably for the best. He doubted the agents could even harm Sal anymore. Not in his current state, anyway. Besides, Akikta needed to focus all his energy on beating Sal. He couldn't do that if he were worried about the others getting harmed.

Now that he thought about it, this was the best-case scenario, since every salmonid was focused on him.

Speaking of, they were still attacking him. Or rather, attempting to. Luckily, Akikta's braids acted as an automated defense system, lashing out at any and all salmonids that got too close. The only salmonid that wasn't attacked by his braids was Sal, and that was because his scales were too tough to cut through.

That was fine, though. It just meant Akikta would have fun beating the ever-living shit out of the monster that deceived him. And that's exactly what he did.

With each salmonid his braids killed, their blood continued to empower him. His strength inevitably reached a point where Sal's punches no longer hurt as much; Soon enough, Akikta went fully offensive, becoming even more aggressive than Sal.

During their one-on-one, Akikta's ink shifted from an armored appearance into a more muscular physique, increasing his attack power.

Sal eventually had enough, catching one of Akikta's punches and pulling him inward. He turned Akikta around and wrapped a beefy arm around his neck, only to choke the daylights out of him. Akikta tried to pry the arm off, but it wouldn't budge.

After a short struggle, Akikta took in a sharp breath and tightened the muscles in his torso. Suddenly, inky spikes jutted out from his back, stabbing Sal in the chest. He roared in pain and released Akikta before stumbling backward.

The ink spikes retracted back into Akikta's body as he turned to Sal, seeing a surprising sight. The spikes had penetrated through his scales, causing Sal to bleed through the various holes in his body.

Fortunately for Sal, the wounds were far too shallow to cause any serious damage. Unfortunately for him, the fact that Akikta could pierce his scales told the teen everything he needed to know.

Finish him. A voice commanded from the deepest corners of his mind.

Sal looked back up at Akikta before roaring furiously. The two charged at each other, and the former mindlessly swung at the latter. Akikta quickly ducked under Sal's punch, delivering a swift but heavy kick to his abdomen. Sal slid back a few feet, then spun and nailed Akikta in the hip with his tail.

Akikta flew right into a cohock, who was immediately sliced and killed by his ink-covered braids. He sat up and spat out his ooze-like blood, only to hear Sal charging at him like some wild animal. Akikta screamed defiantly, transformed his left arm into an axe, and spun.

Schwing

The world fell silent as that noise rang out. Time seemed to stop for Akikta as Sal stood there, motionless.

Sal's pupils had returned, albeit very dilated. His arms, which were raised high, fell to his sides slowly. Sal took a few steps back and hesitantly felt himself around the waist.

A very thin slit formed horizontally in his black jacket, and the bottom half of the leathery fabric fell. Seconds after, a horizontal line of blood formed along that perfect slice.

Sal's pupils started shaking as he looked up from the cut and back to Akikta. The two locked eyes for the final time. "No...way..." was all Sal could mutter before the lights in his eyes vanished.

The top half of Sal was the first to fall, sliding off backward and onto his back. His legs followed suit, collapsing on their knees before fully falling forward.

The resounding thud from Sal's falling body instantly snapped every salmonid out of their frenzy. Even Boris calmed down—just in the nick of time too, as the power Little Buddy received finally wore off. As a result, he shrunk to his original size.

When he did shrink, he lost his flying properties and fell. Luckily, Metta caught him.

All the salmonids looked disoriented at first, but then they saw their almighty lord divided in two. The horde let out a collective gasp, and they moved back from Akikta in fear.

"Master..." A deep and growly voice emitted from above. It was Boris. The king salmonid didn't have a readable facial expression, but if one were to guess by the tone of his voice, he was in disbelief.

Complete and utter silence befell the atmosphere as Akikta took a good look around. He enjoyed the quietness for a moment longer before raising his hands sky high and letting out a scream of triumph. Akikta had finally won. Sal was dead, and so was his reign of terror.

His scream caused the remaining salmonids to scatter. They didn't want any trouble with the person who killed their ruler.

Boris stared down at Akikta for a long moment, possibly debating his next course of action. Instead of avenging Sal, he turned and flew away—not back to the deepest pits of Atlantis, but elsewhere.

When Boris disappeared behind some red clouds, the whole Splatoon erupted into celebration and cheered loudly. For most of them, they just beat the odds and overcame their biggest obstacle yet. For two of them, a nightmare had finally come to an end.

Akikta huffed, taking a few deep breaths. That fight took a lot more out of him than he expected. "I need a little pick-me-up..." His eyes absentmindedly landed on the lower half of Sal. "That'll work."

He extended his right arm to grab and submerge the lord's legs in black ink. It only took a few seconds for the legs to be completely absorbed. Immediately, a refreshing sensation washed over him. Akikta let out a sigh of relief. "Much better."

He blinked a few times, only for his face to morph into pure anguish at the realization of what he had done.

Just as his eyes widened, a terrible pain pounded his head and struck his heart. He groaned and fell to his knees, clenching his teeth and desperately holding onto the ground beneath him.

He looked over to see the others were too busy celebrating to notice what was happening to him. Akikta yelped as another surge of pain pelted him. He gasped and lowered himself closer to the floor.

His heart rate accelerated exponentially, and the beating noise it made rang out like drums in his ears, muffling the world around him. At the same time, the pain spread out from his head to his whole body.

In response, his body's black ink rippled like running waves, then bulked up, similar to Sal's muscles. Their increase in size caused a burning sensation to flow through Akikta. It felt like a fire had been set ablaze in his very veins.

To mitigate the pain, Akikta envisioned his ink shrinking and returning to his left arm.

It did no such thing.

"Oh no..."