Okinawa Prefecture,
Prison of the Heavenly Demon, Masaki Shrine, Japan
Pain.
If there was one thing and one thing alone that could be attributed best to Life, it was its shadowy sister, forever trailing in its wake: Pain.
To know pain was to know life; the agony of existence, the misery of meaning, the information download of a piece of the living body which housed the soul telling the entrapped spirit, "Something is wrong."
Pain informed the living body of injury, reassured a dying body it yet felt, and now, after seven hundred long years of dormancy, re-educated a demon that it was alive once more. That it was being resuscitated, that it would know the torment of Life once more as it cruelly looked down upon the withered husk of a shell that was its body.
Nerve ending, overwhelmed by its newly regenerated purpose, synapsed information up and down the length of a body only just beginning the healing process. The information, the pain, was overwhelming, and the demon shuddered as more energy, more essence, more life was pushed into her crumpled form.
The primal piece of her-the correspondence to the human Amygdala but was in fact the masu core which directed her unconscious responses-shrieked, made manic by the overbearing amount of internal warnings coursing through every millimeter of her body. The higher piece of her wept, desperate and begging for the pain to end, Make it stop, make it stop! I can't take it, just let me die!
Yet the being who held her would not kill her, and her body, tasting both the inherent power of the gems and the entity's own life force, would not allow itself to fall to death; a consequence of her birth through a Chousin made mortal and a source of sentient matter whose sole instinct was survival.
The Will of a mortal could allow it to live or die, if the belief was strong enough; mortals with the Will to survive mass genocide and outlive their persecutors. Mortals with the Will to break down and allow their body to die as they followed a cherished loved one into the afterlife.
Yet Ryoko was no mortal. The Drive to survive, to live, outweighed her Will's cries for mercy, and so her body continued to absorb the energy bestowed upon her, locking away the annoying Conscious mind as the Subconscious and Unconscious overpowered it.
Slowly but surely, magatsuchi-a source of energy that was strange but not wholly unwelcome-was directed through the channels of her body, repairing brittle bone structure, a deteriorated nervous system, and revitalizing the dried blood system. Organs long inoperable were rehydrated and repaired, and as blood began to pass through her body once more, tendon and muscle mass were restored.
Information and reflexive motion was restored to the spinal cord, where toes flexed for the first time in seven hundred years as a hand-made to move first by the instinctual need to re-acquire the gems, now made a fist through the use of bone, blood, tendon, and muscle.
A whimper.
Louis Cyphre looked down at the woman leaning against him. "It hurts, I know." He murmured, "But bear through it-I am certain this is a far cry from what you've experienced in your past, but such is life. To know life is to know pain."
She growled at the Voice, understanding none of it but associating it with the pain she now experienced. Yet Louis remained unperturbed, humming softly and nodding as if in that growl alone, the revitalized entity had spoken a thousand words.
Perhaps, in his own recognition of her suffering-something he himself could attest to-she had.
Gradually, more strength began to return to the woman; the glow of her eyes began to flicker, showing functional eyelids, and she began to move more under her own power, arms and legs which had wasted to skin and bone flexing for the first time as muscle and lost strength returned to them. At length she pulled away from him, separating herself from the Devil with a low and ominous growl.
"Can you stand on your own?" Louis asked her, watching as a hand curled into a taloned claw and took a weak swipe at him. He leaned back, watching the limb pass harmlessly in front of him. It held an ethereal red afterglow. "Your power is certainly returning, but it seems your physical strength remains depleted." He shook his head, clicking his tongue. "Please hold your patience a moment more. You'll have your opportunity to act on your violence." Reaching out, he grabbed the hand that had swung at his head, and the demon almost fell back on top of him as another shudder wracked her body.
A moment turned into a minute.
A minute turned into ten.
Ryoko's body gradually lost the skeletal look. Her rips still showed against her skin, yet it was a far cry from the mummified remains that had once been her perpetual state of agony.
This time Louis blocked the strike at his head.
There was power in the blow this time. True strength; the blow would have been enough to even knock Thor out of a drunken stupor.
Another strike, this time from the other hand, and Louise did not so much lean as he did jerk backwards, feeling something slice into the very tip of his nose.
Ah. She'd grown faster as well.
Another warning growl from Ryoko.
Louis chuckled. "I suppose a cat's patience is a dwindling affair, after all." He said, and stood, grabbing the demon by both arms and bringing her to her feet with gentle grace. "But what is a cat without a mouse to play with?" Ryoko began to thrash in his grip, snarling maniacally as she tried to free herself, yet the Devil's hold remained steadfast. He leaned in, and brought his forehead against hers, which still wore the Oni mask, then pushed through it to rest on her forehead. Their astral bodies met, and he showed her an image.
A tree.
Men.
Goetia.
Ryoko froze, and Louis Cyphre smiled. A moment later, and the legendary demon of the Masaki shrine vanished, the woman's energy reappearing outside the cave's walls. He touched the bridge of his nose, feeling where the edge of a nail had broken the skin. "Interesting…" It took a great amount of power to alter his body, even a shell of a mortal like what he wore now. "No blood." No magatsuchi. "She's gained a taste for it, then. My, what a dangerous force to be reckoned with." He'd encountered entities like that before-creatures who grew drunk on magatsuchi and the power it brought them. Godslayers. Deathlords. The Princes of War and Lovers to Weapons. At one time even he had borne such a title, falling to the same sickness as a mortal man with an addictive personality would to his first taste of the bottle, and by the heavens, how he had grown strong upon his first fall.
Truly, it was unexpected bliss to find a newborn Godslayer joining the fray on the cusp of a new vortex world.
And it was time to see just what destruction the Devil Caller could wrack upon her enemies.
Okinawa Prefecture,
Holy Tree Funaho, Masaki Shrine, Japan
Steel clashed with steel as the Duke blocked the Devil Summoner's attack. The habu, ever swift, slipped his rider away as the Prince lashed out in turn, and a cat laughed cruelly as the Goetia spurred his mount forward. The two mortal warriors dodged left and right, and the habu chased after the Prince who was its first opponent. The Duke's sword came down on Yosho's head, only to bounce away as a translucent light hawk wing from Funaho came to his defense.
Seeing the opening, the warrior prince sliced upward, the sword digging into the Duke's exposed upper right arm, and the three faces snarled as blood-or something like it-leaked from his body. The snake head hissed, and a green mist engulfed the area, healing the wound instantly. Yet as the man-face smiled at him, Yosho spied another serpentine creature-the translucent eel which had quelled Funaho's fires-rise from the waters behind the Duke.
Its body curled into a serpent's striking 's', and as it lunged, another mist-this one a blue-white, left its maw. It struck the demon, and Yosho retreated as ice engulfed it, imprisoning the Goetia before he broke free with a howl.
"To think I had forgotten that the Kuzunoha Clan were not gentlemen." The Duke's human face rumbled. "No matter. I have my own allies." The habu curled protectively around its rider, and the man's left hand reached towards the heavens.
"Now! Attack him now before he summons more demons!" The black cat which was the bancho's companion had a strategic head on him, Yosho realized, and gave sound advice to not only to Raidou, but also to Yosho, who had little experience fighting Demons outside of Ryoko. "Freeze him with mizuchi, then bring him down! Exploit his weakness Raidou!"
The translucent serpent-the mizuchi-twitched as if it heard something, than curled itself into a knot. This time a ball of ice engulfed the Goetia, and as he stood there both Raidou and Yosho launched themselves at him.
Can this blade harm him when he's encased in so much ice? Yosho wondered. He'd noticed an odd energy-a purple-black misasma-wafting from Raidou's blade and knew it's blade could harm more than just the physical, but Yosho knew next to nothing about the properties of the Duke's sword, so graciously gifted to him at the battle's start.
The blade sheered through the ice like a hot knife through butter, to Yosho's surprise, sliding through the ice as if it was paper and digging deep into the demon's body, clefting a black gouge through the ice from the Duke's left collarbone down to his right thigh.
Raidou, with a swift strike, managed to cleave the snake's head from the duke's body.
So he's untrained but experienced. Yosho noted. Unrefined yet effective-like Ryoko. This is a familiar battlefield for him.
The frozen head fell and erupted in black flame as it impacted the water, and Duke Aym once more freed himself from the ice, whose seal had been weakened by both warriors combined attacks. He roared, this time in pain, and the habu retreated, sliding backwards to give the Duke distance as the Goetia recovered. "You…will pay…dearly for that." The cat face snarled. The habu's tail lifted high, then collided hard with the wet surface it glided through. Yet rather than splashing water, a large wave of fire rose and came down on both of the warriors.
Grimacing, Yosho felt the Funaho's light hawk wing engulf him-this time almost too late-and when the fire lost its momentum, he saw that the mizuchi had come to protect its master and was disintegrating as Raidou climbed back to his feet.
Wary dismay struck the boy's youthful features, and he once more removed two vials from his inner jacket. Uncapping one, the mizuchi's remains dissolved into a green mist which seemed to be sucked up by the vial, and as he capped it he uncapped the other, releasing a fresh green mist onto the battlefield.
"Not this time, Kuzunoha." Duke Aym's feline face hissed, and again he raised a hand to the sky. A jolt of lightning struck down beside him, and when the flash cleared a new creature stood by the Goetia's side.
What in the dark side of the moon is that? Yosho stared, trying to make sense of the creature before him. It shook itself, its two heads -more conjoined twins, as if the Duke would have any other kind of servant, Yosho thought-panting in a maw that was not quite canine, not quite feline, but somewhere in the middle. Its two heads seemed to regard both Yosho and Kuzunoha both separately and together with luminescent green eyes. A matching mane of thick emerald hair coated its neck and chest, clashing vibrantly with a golden tinged fur coat that ended in the long, segmented tail of a dragon.
The two heads of the beast growled, and flames licked their lips.
"Of course he'd have Orthrus." The black cat yowled. "Raidou, get Pixie out. We need to revive the mizuchi before-"
A fireball escaped both creature's throats, and Raidou raced forward, grabbing the cat by the scruff of his neck in a dead man's rush to avoid the attack. Yosho held his position, and Funaho responded, her wings effortlessly deflecting the attack. The man raced forward, ignoring Orthrus in favor of the Duke, and paid for his inattention as the beast lunched snarling at him. A Light Hawk Wing beat the creature back, however the beast seemed as supernatural as its summoner. It fell back with twin howls that made the hair on the back of Yosho's neck stand on edge, and a black-violet miasma surrounded him.
Run! He heard Funaho scream, and then felt his stomach drop into his groin as the Light Hawk Wing-the Holy energy of Jurai and Tsunami's greatest gift to her children, was engulfed in black flame before disintegrating.
Funaho, are you alright? Did it harm you?
No-I don't believe so-but I'm struggling to bring the Wings back into existence. I don't know if I'll be able to assist you anymore-not without a power source.
Yosho grimaced, bringing his borrowed sword up to bear against the beast. Can you not drain the gems power from tenchi-ken?
Behind Orthrus, Raidou had summoned another entity-a tiny being, little more than a glowing orb to Yosho's untrained eyes, which flitted around the Devil Caller's head like a tiny glowing hummingbird.
That's the problem…Funaho began, and Yosho felt a fresh lump rise in his chest. I am no longer connected to Ryoko. And I no longer sense the tenchi-ken.
"Oh…shit." Yosho whispered, unaware he'd said the words aloud. Who? How?
I am uncertain. Funaho replied. However I can sense two presences in the cave near my roots. One is familiar. The other terrifies me more than the flames. A pause. …It's gone. A flash of alarm traveled down the link. And so is the fam-Ryoko's coming this way!
Yosho felt a jolt of dread-cold, terrible, and alien-overcome him, and it left the Prince paralyzed and exposed. The beast, Orthrus, lunged at him, claws as long as a grown man's hand gleaming as they stretched wide.
It was Raidou who came to his defense, leaping at the beast fearlessly and slicing deeply into the exposed area between the two heads. The army blade cleaved deep, and the beast howled as it retreated. Raidou drew his pistol-it looked old, a Meji-era relic from before the War. Yet it shot as true as the sword cut deep, and the bancho fired three shots, driving the monster back.
He retreated to Yosho, elbowing the man with a snarl and startling the man from his thoughts. Yosho looked at him with a start, "Something dangerous is coming. Something worse than the Duke." He felt cold-cold like he had when Ryo-oh-ki had first pierced into Jurai's atmosphere, a blazing comet of ill omen that spoke of death and destruction. "The creatures you have-can you bring them all out at once?
Raidou frowned and shook his head, holding up two fingers.
"Only two at a time?"
The teen nodded.
"Bring out your strongest." He said. "I fear we have little time."
The teen frowned, but otherwise made no argument against him. He nodded warily before pointing to Yosho, then to Orthrus and the Duke, who had grown cautious with the death of his serpentine head.
"You need me to stall them." Yosho guessed.
Raidou nodded.
The Prince pursed his lips. "I will do what I can." He said. "Something tells me I won't need to distract them long."
The youth looked at him grimly, then nodded in understanding. He brought two fingers to his lips and whistled, and the tiny little glow-bug appeared again. It zipped in front of Yosho, and to his bafflement he saw that it was a tiny person. A little humanoid woman with the iredescent wings of a dragon fly. Her features looked distinctly Western, not Asian, though she was dressed in what looked like a kimono made of a leaf. She winked at him. "I'm Pixie." She said, and he heard her voice-like tiny bells-in his head and with his ears. "Hold still. Raidou-chan wants me to bestow a blessing upon you. Use it wisely." She blew him a kiss, and a strange blue haze left her lips, washing over him in a sudden explosion of blue. Cold air surrounded him, and the man felt his hair stand on edge as a chill-like that of the mizuchi-crept across his skin. "This will null any magic attacks against you-but only for a set amount of time. Don't dawdle."
His hair felt like it was standing on edge. The sensation of cold faded in place of a sensation of static, and he nodded, then turned towards the Orthrus and Duke Aym.
The man grit his teeth. The Duke watched him with fuming eyes. A hand reached out, and Yosho darted away from the Devil Summoner, watching the hand follow him as he raced to Orthrus. The beast howled, and plumes of fire enveloped him. Yet the heat never reached him, disintegrating around a bubble of transluscent blue energy-like but so unlike a Light Hawk Wing-which enveloped him. The beast drew back warily, and the Warrior Prince seized the opportunity, bringing his sword up in a diagonal slice. The creature raised a paw to deflect the strike, and The Duke's broadsword cleaved through the paw as if it was made of butter, then further and into the creature's left throat. A red mist-blood or something like it-sprayed from the gouge. The beast recoiled, and Yosho brought the sword back to thrust forward at the right head in the next moment.
Yet before he could act, Funaho screamed at him. Dodge right!
Never one to question his tree's orders, Yosho lept right, rolling in the water, and felt something-something which was distinctly energy and not magic-breeze past him in a metallic shriek. Red energy struck the creature dead center, then exploded, leaving what remained of the monster in two separate pieces. The wounded areas appeared seared. The remaining head-still alive despite the death of the left and its body being rendered in two, wheezed pitifully as it tried to crawl forward with one paw, a canine whine emerging from it that was pitiful.
Before he could consider a mercy blow to it, however, the air shimmered and hissed before a form condensed in the area.
Yosho lept back, retreating further as he stared at the entity in long-sleeping terror. "Ryoko…"
The demon was dressed once more in the red-and-black battleskin from his first encounter; one which allowed freedom of movement and seemed immune to the damaging explosions which had resulted from their battle. She looked thin-too thin-but a far cry from the emaciated mummy he habitually saw when investigating the wards on the cave and ensuring Ryoko's continued imprisonment.
The mask he'd placed on her face-a wooden oni mask given to her in a vain attempt at preserving her dignity-remained on her face, and he felt a chill race up his spine as the masked image surveyed the creature before her with eyes glowing red from deep within its sockets. A ball of plasma appeared in her right hand, and she squeezed it, where its form expanded into a long, red, swordlike beam.
The beast below her whimpered, and despite its absolute unearthliness, Yosho could still hear the fear in its whines.
A swift strike, and the beam-the energy blade-pierced the creature's head. It spasmed, then lay still as a red mist-the not-blood-rose out of its fatal blow.
Yosho took a step back, fresh wariness entering him.
Ryoko was absorbing the red miasma.
Straightening, the demon turned to look around her, surveying her new surrounds as intricate beams of red curled around and into her form. She looked to Raidou, who watched her with a dark and grim expression. She looked to the Duke, the feline head's ears laid back against its skull as the human head watched on in dark but cautious interest, and then her gaze turned back Yosho.
Yosho's heart skipped a beat.
The red in the demon's mask brightened, its vibrant hue taking on a shade akin to the sword in her hand. Without warning, she lunged at him with an inhuman shriek, her sword a blur of death his eyes could not follow. His instincts made up for what his eyes lacked, however, and without thought his hands came up, The Duke's blade gleaming in the light.
It won't work, her sword will-
To his astonishment the blade caught and held against Ryoko's, bringing them close before Yosho dropped the blade down and sidestepped, creating an opening for him to counter. His sword came up fast, clashing hard enough against the pirate's to send sparks flying, yet not once did the metal look close to giving way. I might have a chance. It wasn't tenchi-ken, nor even a traditional Jurain energy sword. It was big and unweildly and unbalanced, but it held.
The sword came up, and Ryoko leaned back, falling out of the sword's reach as she fired a ball of red plasma at him with her free hand. He retreated, and would have died if not for the Pixie's magic barrier; Duke Aym had taken advantage of his distraction to launch a new assault against the Prince, and Yosho had retreated right into the Goetia's flames.
An uncomfortable warmth enveloped him, and for a moment it seemed the spell would not hold. Yet hold it did, and the when the flames died once more, Yosho found himself alive and still unharmed.
I don't think my luck will last with another attack like that. He thought. Those flames felt like they were just in range of harming me. I'm on borrowed time once more, and now with Ryoko to contend with.
He glanced at Raidou, who appeared deep in concentration, the tip of his jacket flailing in an invisible breeze as one of his vials glowed an intense green.
Green.
Ryoko's eyes had glowed green when we fought here in Japan. She'd been under another's control. That color isn't here this time. Can she be reasoned with?
With a snarl Ryoko hurled herself at Yosho, and any thoughts of reason flew from the man's head. The woman's actions, while not under the control of another, remained different from the space pirate he'd fought on Jurai-even at her most aggressive, there had been an element of thought and calculation to her actions.
This was like fighting an animal; a wolf with a sword shoved in its maw-wild, primal, unpredictable, and above all savage. There was no thought in her action-merely aggressive action against a fellow predator which had wandered into its territory.
This can't be right. Achika…even Tenchi spoke as if she had a sane mind. He brought the Duke's sword up just in time to catch the blade before it could come down at his head, then stepped forward into the demon's guard and let it slide down the steel, letting the demon's own strength guide the tip of his own sword towards her stomach. Was it the resurrection? Has it affected her mind? Or was it the other 'presence' Funaho sensed?
The sword's steel bit flesh, and the pirate snarled beneath the backstepped, then lunged forward with a thrust, yet to his horror, the demon sidestepped it herself, catching the blade with one taloned hand and holding it motionlessly in place. Grimacing, Yosho tried to free the blade from the pirate's grip, remembering now why he'd alway preferred energy swords, only for the demon to jerk the blade forward in one sudden motion.
Yosho stumbled forward, his hands still gripping the broadsword handle tightly, and then came to understand the alternate uses for a European handle's pommel as the sword was suddenly thrust backwards towards him. The pommel, which ended in a stubby bar of melted steel to keep the handle and pommel in place, drove into his solar plexus.
The breath left him, and Yosho wheezed, falling forward as blinding pain traversed his torso. A hand caught him by his neck-Ryoko's hand, Yosho was dimly aware-and lifted him off the ground. He choked, struggling to breath and feeling nails dig into the delicate flesh.
And in that moment, Yosho grew keenly aware of something-an essence, a piece of himself, something-being drained from him and absorbed by the space pirate.
That…miasma…What was it? What was she doing to him? What was she stealing?
Yo…o… Funaho's voice was growing feint. Ho…d…n…de….ons…
His eyes fluttered listlessly, and he could feel his strength draining once more-whether from the lack of oxygen or from whatever the pirate was taking from him, the Prince didn't know.
Somewhere far off, he heard a shout, and the Prince was falling, free once more. He hit the ground with a hard splash, gasping as he tried and failed to stand. Instead a wave of dizziness overcame him, and the man clutched his head with a groan. He looked up, and found a samurai standing over him.
The man stood in red armor and two matching katanas, wearing a black Shogun's cap with his clan's symbol embellished in red thread atop it. With practiced skill, the man eased himself into a fresh combat stance, staring down the space pirate as Ryoko retreated, the hand which had once grabbed Yosho now little more than a stump on her left arm. Yosho touched his neck and felt the hand still there. He ripped it off with a yell, tossing it away from him, and touched his neck. His fingers touched wetness and four small punctures on the right side of his neck, and one single puncture on the left.
"Yoshitsune, buy us time." The cat again, and Yosho once more felt hands slip under his arms, dragging him away from the two opponents. He looked up, and found Raidou dragging him backwards, a trickle of blood leaking from his nose.
"I guarantee nothing, Servant of Yatagarasu." The samurai, Yoshitsune, replied. Nonetheless, he bent down, edging forward with a look of sharp concentration on his face as Ryoko, snarling, straightened. A red miasma was forming around the stump of her wrist-the same red that had been stolen from Yosho, and even as the Prince watched, he could see the stump slowly expanding back out as the hand regenerated.
The cat raced past him, glaring up at Raidou with angry green eyes. "Idiot boy. You don't have the magnetite reserves to call on Yoshitsune so soon after summoning him, and you called him anyways? You know the cost is your own vitality if you cannot pay the price to summon!"
Raidou shrugged, releasing Yosho to swipe at his nose and leaving a long smear of red across his upper lip. Grunting, Yosho staggered to his feet, watching black spots blossom across his vision. He felt…drained. Sapped. Like he'd overexerted himself training and his own body was betraying him. Kuzunoha looks how I feel. He thought. What did Ryoko…and that samurai-do to us?
He clutched his head, feeling his pulse hammer behind his skull. His eyes trailed past the boy, spotting the Duke in the distance, surveying the latest development with calculating red eyes. He hasn't attacked us since Ryoko appeared. Yosho realized. Does he really not know who she is? Or is he waiting to see whose side to choose?
The man pursed his lips, and for a brief moment the Duke's human eyes met his. It's a gamble but…what else have I to lose?
"Duke Aym!" He shouted, earning an incredulous look not only from Raidou, but from the samurai behind him as well. "You wished for a challenge, did you not? An opponent worthy of your blade?" He pointed to the space pirate, who lashed out madly at Yoshitsune, with her blade, deflected at every turn by the legendary warrior. "Behold! An enemy far greater that I stands before you! One which cannot be reasoned with, cannot be bargained with, and who seeks only destruction!" The Prince bared his teeth in something too sinister to be a grin, and he missed the grimace which passed over the Devil Summoner's face as the Kuzunoha listened. "The Devil Caller, Ryoko, stands before you, freed after seven-hundred years of imprisonment and filled with all the rage I have attempted to subdue. Tell me, Great Duke of the Goetia, have you the capacity to quell her?"
The demon narrowed his two sets of eyes in contempt, the feline's ears folding back against its head as the human sneered at him. In a rare moment, it was that same human head which spoke next, "You think yourself too weak to defeat her?"
"I never said that." Yosho replied. "What I will say is that even in my prime, she nearly killed me, and it was pure luck and an ounce more skill that allowed me to defeat her on the battlefield." He could hear Yoshitsune behind him, grunting and yelling as he kept the pirate at bay, kept her distracted. He wondered if the samurai alone could hold the pirate off in her manic state and knew it was a fool's gamble.
Even when driven to madness by the one controlling her, it had only been Yosho's own Jurain blood and training which had kept him alive. He heard a yell-one of pain, not aggression, and knew that Ryoko was adapting to Yoshitsune's moves, learning how to read him, how to dance with him, and how to defeat him, even as she had done him seven hundred years ago. But while he'd had Fortune on his side that day, Yoshitsune did not, and it was only a matter of time until he was as dead as the mizuchi which had so ended Duke Aym's hellscape.
"Now I am not in my prime." Yosho continued, spying a guarded interest in the Duke's human face and knowing he had a hook. "Now I am winded-first by you, then by the beast, and finally by the Devil Caller herself. She stole something from me. What I cannot say, but I am no fight for you-no challenge for you any longer. For that, there is only Ryoko."
A rumble came from the feline's throat. "And what would you propose, Prince Warrior-Priest who is past his prime?"
I have him. Yosho thought. "Join us." He said. "Fight with us-if only to subdue Ryoko once more. We have our might-you have witnessed it yourself-yet it pales in comparison to Ryoko's strength. If this land-if this planet-is to survive her onslaught, we must all come together and bring her down."
"This planet, you say?" Now both of the Duke's remaining heads were watching him in interest, and an almost feral smile alighted their fused faces. "My, a bold statement. Under what basis does such a tiny waif of a creature have of such a strong claim, Prince Warrior-Priest?"
"My own experience." Yosho retorted. "Ryoko is a known interglactic criminal who has destroyed twenty-eight planets and sixty-nine space colonies. This planet has no defense against her. Should she regain her sanity and still be of such a mind as to weave destruction, there will be little which can be done to stop her." The man met the Duke's gaze with his own burgundy eyes. "We stop her now while she is still weak, and then we can go back to trying to kill each other once we've both recovered. Or do you feel too intimidated to combat a demon that has literally destroyed planets far greater than this one?"
The Duke narrowed his eyes, a snarl on his face. He opened his mouth to reply, and behind him, Yosho heard an agonized scream. He turned, and raised the Duke's sword on instinct, parrying the plasma sword that once more aimed to cut him down. Ryoko leaned in close, and the Prince heard a deep rumble from the confines of the mask. A deep, vertical cut marred its surface, and the eyes glowed with visceral red rage.
A shot rang out, and the woman vanished, teleporting away as Raidou reached into his jacket for another vial. Yosho looked back at the Goetia. "Help us! If you hold any love for this world which is your own, than fight by our side! Preserve this land, if only that you may have a land to exist upon!"
The space pirate reappeared over the Devil Caller's head, her left hand, newly formed once more, glowing with a red ethereal light.
"Raidou, watch out!" The black cat yowled. "I don't think you can deflect it!"
A cyclone of fire struck the woman, enveloping her entirely, and Yosho smiled, watching a ball of fire-the demon herself-fall from the sky, impacting the ground with a hard splash. The man looked over to The Duke, who approached them on his viper mount. The Duke looked at him in a mixture of scorn and cold interest. "A true Prince, I see. It seems your words are mightier than your sword." The feline's eyes narrowed. "But I do not ally myself for free…and I will take my payment when this fight ends."
"And what is your price?" Yosho asked warily.
"Your arm." The Duke said. "I want your sword arm."
What does that mean? The Prince wondered.
He was not granted the chance to ask. "Does this creature feel no pain?!" The black cat yowled.
Yosho turned as Ryoko rose to her feet once more, singed but unharmed as the fires died around her. She screamed, and Yosho turned back to the demonic duke. "Deal!"
A smirk, coy, dark, and filled with ill intention, slid across Duke Aym's human face. "Than let us make haste; the dear lady does not appear the type for introductions."
The woman flew toward them in a mindless rage, bringing her sword down to bear upon The Duke, who raised his own sword up in an easy parry. A smile alighted the human face, and feline face hissed. The two clashed, and Yosho took the opportunity to retreat back to his more human ally.
"Are you okay?" The bancho looked drawn and pale, and he was visibly panting as he watched the ongoing battle. Yet at Yosho's concern, he waved the Prince off, an arrogant smile on his face.
"He's not, but he won't admit it." The black cat retorted, and the smile dropped from Kuzunoha's face as he glared at the creature. "My idiot disciple used up all his reserved magnetite in the battle. The spirit he summoned-Yoshitsune-had to tap into his vitality in order to acquire form and he's feeling the after affects of it." The cat's ears laid flat against its skull, giving it a demonic look of its own. "He will not be able to summon additional demons this battle. Not without further risk to himself." The creature eyed him. "You are fortunate The Duke was moved by your pretty words. Greater men have fallen for less-and more-to his blade. Do you always ally with your enemies?"
"No, but my mother was gifted in reading people and my grandmother was known as a demon in her own right. She lived by the motto, 'Why waste energy fighting when lesser men will do it for you?"
The cat grunted. "A clever and dangerous woman." He stated. "Another time and place, she'd have made a wonderful ally to the Kuzunoha clan. I should consider ourselves fortunate we have her grandson on our side."
"And I'm the one who speaks pretty words?" Yosho grumbled, but let the matter drop. "You should retreat. Ryoko isn't showing any signs of weakening, and now that she's free from Funaho, I fear her strength will return faster than we can drain it."
"Ha!" It was absurdly strange hearing a cat laugh, and Yosho wondered what the black feline actually was-he certainly wasn't a cat. "You think because we have no demons we're out of this fight?" Raidou looked at the Warrior Prince rebelliously, and the cat's tail lashed wildly. "We just need the proper opening and…" The teen reached to his belt, withdrawing something from a small, white satchel. He opened his hand to reveal it, and Yosho stared at the multi-faceted crystals in confusion. What looked like a ruby, a piece of amber, an emerald, and some kind of blue-hued quartz rested in the teen's hand.
The cat saw his face and elaborated. "They're magic stones. Stones with entrapped elementals inside. If you throw one at your opponent, the stone will break and the spirit will attack anything near it. Do you know the demon's weakness?"
"Not fire." Yosho replied. Raidou rolled his eyes, but pocketed the ruby regardless.
"What else?"
The Prince looked at the stones carefully, thinking back to his prior fights with the Pirate and what had affected her the most. "Are they all elements?"
"Yes. Fire, earth, wind, and ice. We are out of electric rocks."
The man pursed his lips, then glanced behind him, back at the two warring demons. Duke Aym held a frightening smile on both of his faces, his human face laughing as he parried, countered, and attacked the space pirate. Blood pooled down his left arm, and the viper which was his mount had been sliced in two, now resting dead at his feet. Ryoko appeared the exact opposite: her body remained free of wounds, and if anything, her form had filled out a little more since first arriving at Funaho; it was as if the two exchanged vitality as they fought, one feeding the other his strength as he grew closer to death. Yet still, Duke Aym held an expression of such utter glee on his face that Yosho shivered.
He's finally found his challenge. Yosho thought, and turned back to his companions. "…Wind will do nothing to her. I've seen her survive all the charges of Jurai's defense network and not bat an eye, so electricity won't work even if we had it." He pursed his lips, staring at the remaining two stones as Raidou pocketed the yellow stone. "Earth and ice…will the earth bind her to the ground?"
Raidou shook his head, and the cat elaborated, "No. It will cause an earthquake. If you are hoping to bury her beneath the earth…"
"I was."
"…We do not have a large enough stone for that." The cat stated. "Teragi is all we have, which may do decent damage, but commands the spirit to pierce with stalagmites in an upward explosion."
Yosho shook his head. "That won't work than."
"Ice?"
The man began to shake his head, then paused as Funaho spoke up. She fears the cold and the dark.
Yosho looked back to his tree. "You know this?"
The gems did more than sustain me, Yosho. There was a strong hesitation in his tree's voice. My roots were in her. I…know her Yosho. Not the beast-not what you fight now-but I know her soul. She was awake for seven hundred years with only the cold and dark for company.
"But she can survive the vacuum of space." Yosho protested.
The vacuum of space does not pierce her form the way this planet does. The cold seeped into her bones, into her spirit, Yosho. It scarred her, and so too did the dark. If she is struck, she will fall.
There was dread in the tree's words. Dread for…Ryoko? You kept this from me?
She has suffered enough, Yosho. My roots were her chains, and I felt every vibration of pain and life seep from her and into me. Please make it fast. That alien presence-It drove her to this madness.
Yosho grimaced, then felt pain blossom across his cheek. "-osho!"
He blinked, then looked at Raidou in shock. "Did you slap me?"
Raidou looked insulted.
"He punched you." The cat replied. "You started talking to yourself and then zoned out on us. Will the ice work or not? I don't think Duke Aym will last much longer."
The man rubbed his cheek, but nodded, ignoring the glare Raidou cast his way. "It will work. What's the strongest stone you have?"
"We have this bufuni stone, two mabufuni stones-which, if Duke Aym is now a fair-weather friend, we may want to save for after Ryoko is done for, and one bufudyne stone-the strongest of the lot."
Yosho nodded, then glanced at Raidou "How good is your throwing arm?"
Raidou smirked darkly, then gave him two thumbs up.
"I'll assume that's good." Yosho said. "It's bound to be better than mine-I was trained in war, not sport-"
"Depressing." The cat said snidely.
"-and I can't aim worth a damn if its not a bow or weapon." Yosho finished, overcoming the urge to punt the cat towards the two demons.
"Fine. So we wait for an opening."
"Better, we distract her. She wants me more than anyone else here. We draw the attention towards myself, let her come after me as The Duke gets a few strikes in to slow her, and then freeze her."
"You never struck me as the reckless sort." Yosho could almost hear the raised eyebrow in the cat's voice.
If only he knew. Funaho muttered.
Don't you start. Yosho retorted. Aloud he said, "I'll draw her attention and bring her your way. When she's within range and you have a clean shot, throw the stone. We only have this one chance."
Raidou nodded grimly, pocketing the stones before withdrawing a quartz the size of his fist. It glittered with its own internal blue light, and this close it seemed to produce its own chill. Yosho felt his arms break into goosebumps. I don't like this stuff. This…magic. These spirits, the demons…none of it. He realized. I want this to end. I want to check on Tenchi and make sure he's okay, with Ryoko back in her prison or at least sane and rational. This is too alien for me. Too foreign, too strange, and I don't like it one bit.
Frowning, the man stood, eying the stone a moment longer before hefting the large broadsword on his shoulder and surveying the two demons before him. It hadn't been his imagination-Ryoko was regaining her strength at an alarming rate, moving with a liquid grace and speed that had been absent in the emaciated creature that had first appeared. Duke Aym, in comparison, had slowed substantially, and Yosho recognized him as a dying warrior on his last leg. The man had slowed tremendously, and was now on the defensive, blocking each blow with labored effort as he panted, sweat and blood-or whatever it was that substituted blood in a demon-seeping from a plethora of wounds which the plasma saber should have seared shut on impact.
It was an intimidating sight, and Yosho swallowed, for a moment finding himself in The Duke's place, panting, on the defensive, all effort placed into keeping himself alive and in one piece against the walking catastrophe which was the Space Pirate Ryoko. It had been skill, luck, and the tenchi-ken which had granted him victory on that day, with a Ryoko already injured and wounded from their crash into the mountainside.
This time he had no tenchi-ken, and luck seemed to be on Ryoko's side.
Shut up. He told himself. One who believes the enemy has the upper hand has already lost. Get your head in the game Yosho. Your grandson is still missing and Funaho still needs you.
Taking a deep breath, the man ran towards the two demons with a mighty bellow. As he predicted, his voice immediately grabbed the space pirate's attention, and Ryoko looked towards him right before her sword came down on Duke Aym's head. There it hovered, and as The Duke looked on with mirroring surprised expressions, Ryoko tilted her head, the mask as of yet remaining on her face and masking her features from the Prince's eyes.
Without a second thought she hurled the blade meant for Aym at Yosho, a hot blade of plasma that caused the air around it to dance with heat waves. Yosho dodged right at the last moment and felt the plasma sail past him, the energy so intense it caused the hair on the left side of his body to rise with static.
He did not pause in his charge.
The demon tilted her head then vanished, and instinctively Yosho raised his sword, meeting Ryoko's new sword as she bore down on him. He'd seen the tactic half a dozen times now; her madness made her technique at lease semi-predictable-and stepped left before leading her backwards, leaving himself on the defensive as he guided the crazed woman back towards Raidou. From the corner of his eye, he saw Duke Aym fall to a knee, leaning heavily against his blade as he caught his breath, and knew the demon would not assist them any further.
So much for wearing her down before freezing her. Yosho grimaced, leading her in a slow waltz around the area, wondering if he could at least tire the woman out before coming in range of Kuzunoha. Yet as he feared, even without the gems, Ryoko seemed to hold boundless energy, and attacked with mechanical persistence, each strike as hard and fast as the last. It became all Yosho could do to block the strikes, and with his focus so absorbed in defending himself, he was caught unaware when Raidou threw the bufudyne stone.
Something entered his peripheral from the right, and in the next moment the large not-quartz struck the demon. As he'd been warned, the stone exploded, unleashing the elemental trapped within. He heard Ryoko scream-not the scream of a demon, a beast, or a monster, but of a woman-and in the next instant she was imprisoned within a block of ice, partially thrown backwards as if entrapped in the midst of an explosion.
The man lept backwards, sword raised in preparing for when the space pirate would break out, yet no suck thing happened. The woman remained frozen within the prison of ice.
Is it over than? He stood, staring at the woman and panting, trying to calm his racing heart. It feels like she's still looking at me. He swallowed. I need to get the tenchi-ken and lock her up again before the ice melts. Otherwise-
With a roar, Duke Aym, half-dead but still very much a threat-brought his sword down on the frozen space pirate's head.
"NO!" Yosho yelled, reaching out in vain.
The sword shattered the ice, and with it Yosho heard the rest of Ryoko's scream: dismayed, desperate, and dying.
The demon crumpled under the sword, falling to the ground where she remained motionless, shards of ice falling like cold stars around her.
Laughing darkly, Duke Aym rose, bringing his sword over his head in a final blow. "And with this final blow, our Contract is sealed, Warrior Priest." The sword came down.
"Don't touch her!"
A flash of blue, and The Duke stumbled backwards, a look of bewilderment on his face. "There's more of you?" The feline yowled. "How many rats will crawl out of this tree's roots?"
"Tenchi?" Yosho stared at the youth in shock.
Standing before them, shielding the fallen space pirate, stood Tenchi Masaki, tenchi-ken in hand and alive and active with blue light. Three red gems pulsed in its hilt.
The teen looked scared but resolute. "I'm warning you-don't take another step closer! I won't let you touch Ryoko!"
Comments of a Madwoman: Madness descends upon Life Unchallenged. A cancer which takes hold and devours all, leaving Ruin in its wake...