Chapter 6: Dark Diving
"That devil earlier was pretty tough huh?", Kobeni jumped slightly as Violence broke the comfortable silence that had settled between them. They had been assigned one of the night patrols around Ginza in the aftermath of the defeat of Katana and Sawatari.
Kobeni had been thrilled when she found out about the posting, with Ginza being one of the safer parts of the city; a result of the many luxury businesses hiring private devil hunter to guard the premisses. And for the last week her optimism was well-founded, with not a single devil attack happening in their vicinity since their assignment. Until this evening that was...
"H-huh?!", Kobeni squeaked back in response, "O-oh… Yeah…"
Her peaceful fortnight patrolling Ginza was swiftly brought to an end when a devil ran amok in one of Ginza's most popular high-end department stores.
"Haha!", Violence barked out, laughing at the fond memory of the fight, "Who woulda thought a clown devil could be so strong!".
Kobeni chuckled nervously at her buddy's antics. Whilst he remembered fighting and killing the creature, she just remembered hiding among the bodies of its victims…
'God the t-things it did to them..', Kobeni shuddered, 'the b-balloons…"
She looked back up at Violence nervously, "S-sorry, I know I wasn't much help today…", she looked back down at the pavement guiltily.
Violence looks back down at the timid girl, "Ahh, nothing to worry about Kobeni, I enjoyed myself anyway", Violence chuckled in response. "A-ah, oh, I see…", Kobeni fidgeted.
"Mr Violence, w-why are you so nice to me?", Kobeni stuttered out a question that had been bugging her for ages, "I-I thought that all fiends would be like P-power or Princi… but you don't seem like that at all…, you're so… kind to me".
Violence put his hand to his chin, as if pondering what she said, "Well, I remember Miss Makima saying that fiends are often influenced by their hosts emotions… so that may have something to do with it…"
Kobeni looked up at the fiend in confusion, "wha-", she was interrupted by a buzz from her pager.
She looks down at the small device, seeing it displaying a message from her boss Hayakawa…
"Hey, whats wrong Kobeni?", Violence watches as he sees the girl trembling.
"It's Mr Hayakawa, t-there's been an attack at the Division 2 training f-facility…", she replied to the fiend, the misery on her face visible clear as day.
Violence perked up at that, excited at the thought of another fight, "Then we better get going!", he exclaimed before sprinting off.
Kobeni desperately scrambled to run after him, struggling to suppress her panic.
Kobeni ran towards the direction her partner ran, tears threatening to spill from her eyes, 'T-this day couldn't get any worse…'
Reze stood in front of the car, holding aloft the heads of the last two hunters she killed in a show of power, hoping that it would be enough to intimidate the remaining Public Safety members in the car into giving Denji up to her.
Judging by the hateful expression of the driver was fixing her with, she didn't fancy her chances…
'Screw it, it's worth a shot anyways, anything to cut this short…', with that thought she gave her ultimatum.
"I killed them to show my power", she stated this matter-of-factly, her voice sounding monotone and tired, "I'd prefer to keep the killing to a minimum".
The Topknot in the driver's seat maintained his death glare, griping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. Reze turned her head, fixing her gaze on the incapacitated boy slumped over in the passenger seat. She would've winced if she could've, 'if only he'd agreed to-'
She cut the thought short, she had a job to do.
"Unload Denji from the vehicle and walk away".
A moment later the car screeched past her. Topknot had made his choice…
Reze sighed, 'Geez… nothings went my way today', she felt her melancholy turn to anger as the car drove down the road behind her. 'Not only do all my own plans blow up in my face, but then the mission goes tits up as well!'
'Screw this!', with that Reze detonated the ground below her, launching herself towards the carlike a mortar shell, landing with a thud on the car roof mere moments later.
"Cars burn to a crisp because of the gasoline…", Reze said this just loud enough for those in the car to hear.
"This is turning into a big pain…", she wound back her fist.
"THANKS FOR NOTHING!", Reze yelled out in frustration as she went to bring her fist down on the car, explosions rippling down as it went, all her rage being channeled into the blow. Just as she was about to bring the fist down, she caught a flash of movement coming towards her from her left, quickly halting the momentum of her blow and raising her other arm to defend against the flying kick coming her way.
The force of the kick sends her flying off the car roof, hitting the tarmac with a thud. Quickly recovering from the fall Reze gets to her feet, just in time to send her assailant, a fiend of some sort, with some kind of plague doctors mask on his face, flying down towards her with an axe kick.
She would've rolled her eyes if she could've, this day was becoming more and more of a pain in the ass…
She simply raised her right arm and stopped the kick dead in its tracks, the ground under her feet shattering under the force of the kick. She smirked internally as the fiend quickly jumped back in shock.
"No way!", the fiend shouted, "But I kicked you at full strength!"
'Maybe intimidation will work this time…', Reze thought as pain shot through her arm.
"It was pretty good!", she taunted moving into a fighting stance, "Put'em up!"
They stood in a stand-off for a moment, neither budging an inch until the fiend suddenly put his hand up to his mouth and shouted out.
"Kobeni!", he called out, "Change of plans!"
"This lady is way to strong for us!", Reze watched in bemusement as the fiend turned tail and booked it towards a nearby building, shouting as he ran, "Time for a tactical retreat!"
He quickly reached a side door to a nearby building, nearly ripping the hinges off the door as he ran in, before quickly doubling back and poking his head out of the doorway.
"Don't mind me, I'll just show myself out!", the fiend called out one last time, before quickly slamming the door behind him.
Reze stared at where the fiend disappeared to, cocking her head slightly, 'huh… didn't think it'd work that well…', she then remembered the name the fiend had called out, slowly turning to look behind her, 'I wonder who he was calling out to- oh you have got to be joking…'
Reze almost face palmed as she looked at the terrified girl on her knees behind her.
"Get up… get up, get up, get up, get up!", Kobeni chanted to herself, "My legs…". Kobeni's day had just went from bad to worse, her legs having given out as soon as Violence had run away, her attempt at a sneak attack failing miserably…
She looked up nervously just to see the Bomb staring directly at her.
"YEEEEEEEEE!", the petite girl screamed out in terror as Reze stared at her in confusion, "I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY!"
"I'LL QUIT THIS JOB, JUST PLEASE HAVE MERCYYYY!"
Reze continued watching as the girl grovelled, now calling out for divine intervention.
'I didn't even do anything…', Reze thought as she began walking away from the girl, 'Well, at least I didn't have to kill anyone this time, if only everything else tonight went that smoothly…'
As she reached a respectable enough distance from the girl, as to not catch her in the blast radius, Reze launched herself into to the air once again.
"Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God!", Kobeni swore to herself, she'd definitely quit this time, no matter how big the bonus was, and no matter what her parents thought!
As they sped along the main road, Angel was wrapping the wound on his arm with a frown on his face, having just dripped as much blood as he could into the blonde's mouth, a feat easier said than done when weaving in and out of traffic at great speed…
'This better be worth it', he thought grumbling to himself, only to freeze, hearing a sound coming from outside the car, almost akin to fireworks…
His eyes, widened, 'uh-oh', quickly winding down the car window and poking his head out, seeing an orange streak zigzagging through the night sky towards them.
"Here she comes!", Angel yelled into Aki as the orange in the sky faded and a figure descended down towards them.
Reze fell down towards the road, her dynamite apron fluttering around her as she landed on the six-wheeler driving behind them with a thud, having just fallen short of her target. She calmly sauntered to the front of the lorry, looking down at the car that was now only mere metres in front of her.
Angel's head swung away from watch the Bomb hybrid behind them as he heard a sharp gasp from the seat behind him, 'oh that boy's woken up, we might actually survive this… shame…'. He turned to Aki, who was laser focussed on the road in front of him, trying and failing to find a gap in the traffic, "Hey, so Chainsaw kid just came back to life, but Bomb girl is right behind us", Angel casually informed Aki, as if the whole thing was a bore to him.
Aki on the other hand, was pretty far from being bored, cursing as he tried getting getting the radio in the car working, "Crap!", he barked as he fiddled with the radio as he drove, "the police radio's is busted!".
As if in reply the radio flicked on, though with the only sound coming from in being a loud bass.
'So much for backup', Aki grimaced.
"If it comes to it, I'll ram her with the car!", Aki yelled in frustration, "We can't give her Denji!"
Denji gasped as life rushed back into his body, the taste of blood lingering in his mouth reminding of how he got there, as he stared at the back of the car seat blankly.
'Reze… after all that she was only after chainsaw…', his shock and bitterness quickly gave way to anger.
'She tells me she likes me, that she wants to run away with me!', Denji worked himself into a black rage, 'then she bites off my fucking tongue!'
He hears Aki talking in the front seat, but he wasn't listening as he pulled the cord in his chest, his chainsaws springing out, Denji instantly putting them to work cutting through the car roof. He heard Aki and that Angel chi- dude shout at him, but he didn't care, he only had one thing on his mind.
Denji jumped out of the car, coming face to face again with his favourite waitress…
As they stared each other down, Denji found the words he wanted to say tumbling out of his mouth, "When I was in so much pain I thought I'd die, in the back of my confused brain, I thought about things reeeal hard, and I realised somethin'…"
"EVERY WOMAN I MEET TRIES TO MURDER ME!", he thought of Himeno, that nervous chick, Power and all of them had tried to kill him! Hell, even Miss Makima threatened to kill him not even an hour after they met!
"EVERYBODY'S AFTER MY CHAINSAW HEART!"
"WHAT ABOUT MY HEART?! DENJI'S?!"
"DOES ANYONE WANT THAT?! HUH?!"
"I do", Reze calmly interjected as Denji's tirade reached its crescendo. 'There's no point lying now, I'm gonna have to kill him anyway, may as well let him know the truth…'
"I meant it when I said I like you, Denji", Reze, for those few seconds again sounded as she felt; tired.
"Wait… for real?", the rage and bitterness instantly left Denji's voice at the other hybrid's confession, 'could she mean it?', Denji's mind raced with questions, 'why did she attack me then?'
"You're so gullible!", Denji was snapped out of his thoughts as Aki yelled at him from inside the car, "Don't listen to the enemy!"
"Ack! That was a close one!", Denji exclaimed, feeling a bit embarrassed, "Almost got tricked there!"
Reze was starting to get pissed at that damn topknot, though she supposed it didn't really matter if Denji believed her or not at the end of the day, it didn't change anything…
"I don't know why you wanna kill me, but I'm gonna have to pass!", Denji's fury was reignited, "I've got MAKIMA!"
"Makima…", Reze almost visibly deflated upon hearing that name, 'So he works directly under Makima… so all my plans were sunk from the start…'
"Oh Denji…", Reze's voice was laced with pity, "You're that witch's pet?"
"Then even if we had run away with me, it would have been pointless…", Reze sighed, Makima's abilities of surveillance were well known, and if she'd taken an interest in Denji they wouldn't have got far, "Darn…"
"Yeah, well, I should never never have kissed you either!", Denji paused for a moment, "Darn!"
If Reze had eyes right now, she'd be rolling them.
"If any more people die because of me, I won't be able to sleep at night!", Denji got into position, "So you're under arrest! I'm takin' you in!"
Reze shifted into a fighting stance, observing Denji's own movements, "Come here, Denji", Reze said, her voice cold and oozing confidence, "I'll show you how we do battle."
Denji sprung towards the lorry Reze was perched on, yelling as he flew towards her, "Oh you're gonna teach me everything!"
With that battle cry, Reze threw a punch right towards him, with Denji deftly dodging the strike… only for Reze to redirect the momentum of the strike down towards the truck they were standing on, detonating the vehicle below them, bathing them both in smoke and flame.
The lesson had begun.
Denji flew away from the blast, careening into the metal shutters of an office closed for the night.
"OW!", Denji cried out, more in surprise than in pain, the impact winding him. 'Huh, well that coulda be-'
His thoughts were interrupted as Reze shot forward through the smoke, practically materialising in front of him, 'Oh come on!', Denji only had time to cross his chainsaws in front of him as the blow connected, the whole lower floor of the building exploding, littering the street with fragments of glass and concrete and sending Denji crashing through the shutter, with the force of the explosive blow sending him flying through several internal walls.
Denji slammed into another wall, having slowed his momentum enough that concrete cracked instead of shattering again. He was in a crouching position, chainsaws still crossed as Reze stood watching him from the former entrance of the office, now blown open wide by the blast, the shutter in bits all over the street.
"You're not applying yourself Denji", Reze taunted as Denji rose from his defensive position, "You can't just swing your chainsaws around".
"You have to understand your powers better", Reze wasn't sure why she was telling him all of this, she usually did banter a bit while fighting, it helped distract her from from whatever atrocity the Politburo had her doing, but giving her target advice? Never.
She shrugged as Denji spotted the surprise she left on his right saw, waving at him cheekily, showing off her missing finger, as the fuse on the detached appendage reached its end.
"Boom!"
Once again Denji was blasted back through the wall, the last remaining windows on the floor blowing out, pulverised concrete creating a thick smoke in the air, Reze once again stalking closer, stopping at the hole Denji had disappeared through. For a moment all was silent except for the sound of falling debris.
'There's no use playing dead on me Denji…', Reze was getting bored of this now, 'I know how much punishment we can take'.
As if he had read her mind, she heard Denji's Chainsaws revving once again from somewhere within the smoke and haze, the suspense being ended as Denji launched himself straight at her. He was closer than she thought he was.
'Oh Denji…'
He wasn't close enough though, as Reze, in one fluid movement, slugged him with a rocket-fuelled haymaker straight to his gut, catching him mid-jump. A blinding flash lit up the remains of the building, as a beam of light flashed from the bottom floor all the way through the roof as Denji found himself launched like a firework up into the sky, with no way to defend himself.
'SHHIIIIIIIITTT!', Denji screamed internally as he flew up into the night sky, the breath having been forced from his lungs after Reze had gut-punched him, the fire still burning where he was hit. A blur of black and orange shot up past Denji with a roar, before the engine suddenly petered out above him. Reze quickly pivoted in the air, her right leg quickly sprouting wires that quickly engulfed her entire leg, forming up in the shape of a missile.
'Boom'
Reze rocketed down, the missile detonating as soon as it made contact.
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
The two hybrids descended back to earth like in the form of a flaming meteor, crashing down upon the block of offices below.
Reze was crouched down in the crater where they had crashed down, her leg now back to normal, and resting in what remained of Denji's stomach.
'Eughh…', Reze stood up, removing her foot from what remained of the boy she, just hours ago, planned to escape with, pushing down her self-loathing as she looked around at the civilians who were blasted away, many of whom were injured.
Around her was, men, women, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters…
Reze's head quickly snapped back to the torso at her feet, the sound of flesh reforming alerting her, "Regeneration…", Reze looked down curiously, 'How is he- ahhh… clever…'
"You were revving before I kicked you, hmm?", Reze taunted as she picked up what was left of him from the ground, the civilians screaming as they saw the monster haul the torso up from the crater, Denji's saws spinning weakly as he was raised into the air.
'Not clever enough, I'm afraid'.
Once again, the street was lit up by explosions as Reze began blasting what was left of Denji with blast after blast, the bystanders cowering behind whatever cover they could find as she kept up her relentless rolling barrage.
As the smoke from the blast cleared, the only sound that could be heard was the sizzling and crackling of skin and flesh. Reze dropped her arm back to her side, as she looked down at what she had done, most of the skin had been burnt off, all limbs gone, blood evaporated and the chainsaw on his head shattered. The only recognisable features left being his head and the cord on his chest… the one she had first seen at the school…
'….', Reze quickly jerked her head away from Denji, from her handiwork, looking straight ahead as she moved to leave.
She gracefully walked over the rubble and destruction on her way out, walking even on the corpses of the civilians killed in her initial impact into the street, using them as steppingstones through the wanton destruction and carnage she had wrought.
With her mission near complete, and Denji once again incapacitated and in her hands, Reze felt numb, in her hands she held what was left of her hopes, her hopes of escaping from this life of monotonous killing, her hopes of fleeing to live a peaceful life and her hope that she would have someone- something shifted behind her, some tumbling rubble, the scrape of a shoe on the ground, she swung around- too late.
The blade came down before Reze managed to turn around fully, slicing clean through her arm, with Denji and the arm that was carrying him dropping to the ground. For a split-second Reze stared at her stump of an arm, at Denji on the ground, before turning to her assailant.
'Goddamn Topknot!', she fumed as she swung around with a guttural yell, swinging her arm at him as it reformed, a trail of explosions following the arc of the blow, as Aki threw himself out of the way with barely a second to spare.
Reze silently seethed as Topknot dodged her every swing, always a second or two ahead of her. Her frustration building, Reze decided to break out the big guns again, 'Screw this, and screw topknot!', her arm morphing into a missile akin to the one she just used on Denji. These used up a lot of her energy, but she needed this guy gone ASAP if she wanted to complete this mission, she was on a timer after-all...
She slammed the missile down, incinerating debris and corpses alike, cars flying off in every direction as another catastrophic explosion rocked the street. However, any hope Reze had of ending it all there and then dissipated as the smoke in front of her cleared, revealing Topknot a safe distance away in the arms of the fiend she spared earlier.
'I guess no good deed goes unpunished', she thought bitterly.
Drained after firing off two of her strongest attacks in quick success and seeing the chances of a timely victory shrinking before her eyes, Reze decided to move on to plan B.
"Sorry I'm so late to the party!", Violence exclaimed as he released Aki from his grip. He had known that he and Kobeni stood no chance against Bomb in a straight fight, so a tactical retreat was the best option. Now that they could go at Bomb together, the likelihood of a better fight was that much higher!
'I do hope Kobeni got away okay though…', Violence had sprinted through the streets as soon as he was out of sight, following the streaks of light left in the sky as Bomb moved, he'd had no time to double back to check on her.
'Ahh, I'm sure she's fine, given how athletic she is I'm sure she ran away as soon as I yelled out to her… yeah!', Violence's thoughts were wrenched away from his buddy, who was definitely not still curled up on the street where he left her, as Aki finally spoke. "This is the first time I've ever wanted to be friends with a devil", Aki finally spoke, still in shock as he shakily got up, Violence moving to support him.
As the two moved into defensive stances, they eyed Reze warily, tensing when she quickly held both of her arms out.
"Whoa, time out!", Aki and Violence stared at the hybrid in confusion as she continued on, "I'm anaemic and practically naked, and now its two on one", Reze complained airily, as if she was some poor damsel, "That's no fair!"
She wasn't totally lying either, those last few attacks had drained her big-time, she was practically anaemic after expending so much blood forming up those missiles. Now she just had to buy a little time…
Violence turned to Aki suddenly, "True that…", Violence didn't want to make the fight unfair, it would kinda take the fun out of it, "Should we give her a handicap".
Aki didn't even have the energy to be exasperated at this point, "No". "You heard the boss man!", Violence quickly swapped his attention back to Reze.
As the wind began picking up, Reze knew she had bought herself enough time, 'Heh, looks like Typhoon has his uses, shame I have to use it on these lot though, could've been a great way to disappear off the grid, disappearing in a storm…'
Moments later the building behind her exploded, the Typhoon devil crashing through, bellowing as it finally arrived at the scene.
"LADY REZE!", the strangely childlike voice of the devil roared, "TYPHOON HAS ARRIVED!"
Aki's mouth nearly hit the floor as Violence cried foul, as they watched the giant devil crash through the building behind Bomb, its form that of a child, with an intestine-like rapidly spinning around it, pulverising all it came into contact with. Aki just hoped Angel was following through on his end of the plan…
A short distance away, Beam carefully set down what remained of his partner on the asphalt below, morose at his failure to protect Lord Chainsaw from Bomb. He looked up silently as he saw Angel, another of Lord Chainsaws followers, carrying over a corpse.
Angel held the body of the woman over Denji's prone form, thinking back to her last moments as her lifeblood dripped down into the hybrid's serrated mouth. She had looked up at him as she died, reaching towards him as if he was offering her salvation. And then she died, just like that.
All he could offer was meaningless platitudes, 'you're going to heaven', 'it's okay', 'I'm sorry'.
He shouldn't even care for these humans, he was a devil after all… but the way that woman looked at him, reminded him of something.
He frowned, if only he could remember…
He snapped out of those thoughts as he heard a low rumbling sound coming from the body at his feet, bones and sinew reforming and reconnecting until Denji shot up, his saws revving like an engine roaring back to life.
"Any ordinary devil would be dead!", even the usually melancholic Angel couldn't keep some amazement from his voice, sure Devils could heal themselves with blood, but not getting half their body being blown off!
"That's my Lord Chainsaw!", Beam meanwhile shouted in elation at the return of his partner, "He's the badass-est!"
Angel quickly wiped the shock from his face, addressing Denji bluntly, "Your girlfriend is killing too many people", Denji looked out towards the burning neighbourhood, its streets strewn with bodies.
"Leave her loose like this, and many more people will die", Angel still wasn't sure why the deaths of those civilians bothered him that much, but he knew he couldn't just leave this be.
"Choose Chainsaw", he turned to address Denji, who was looking towards the destruction in the mid-distance, "Do you let her kill you without fighting, mitigating casualties… or do you kill her?"
Denji opened his mouth for a moment, before sighing lightly and rising back up to his feet. "Pretty easy choice if you ask me", he still didn't specifically want to kill Reze, but if it was between his own life and hers?
That was easier said than done though, Denji looked around at the destruction she had wrought, "Reze's insanely strong though"
Angel frowned, 'ehhh… no point sending him off to killed again I suppose, time for some brainstorming… ah I know!'
"Shark, you seem to know a lot about the Chainsaw Devil", Angel turned to the shark fiend who was still crouched on the ground, "If you want to live through the day, you need to tell us as much as you can."
Beam opened his mouth hesitantly, "Lord Chainsaw… Ultra fast… but when he moves, he use more than feet!"
As he continued, Beam grew more and more animated, "He used Chainsaw to move, he throw and hook chain, move from building to building!"
With that a switch flipped in Denji's head, it was what Reze said!
'I'm not applying myself, that's what she said!'
"Oh yeah!", Denji exclaimed, "Samurai Sword moved around with that flashy sword-draw move… and Reze used explosions to move too!", Denji would've thanked Reze for her 'lesson' if she hadn't turned him into her personal punching bag. "So I oughta apply my powers as well!"
"LORD CHAINSAW, YOU GENIUS! LORD CHAINSAW, YOU GENIUS!", Beam cheered jumping up and down in excitement.
"Using my chain to move?", Denji pondered for a second before remembering something the old man had said after he left him and Power bleeding out after one of their training sessions, something about… thinking outside the box?
"I get it! I know the answer!", Denji yelled in victory as Beam cheered on.
"EXACTLY!"
"EXACTLY!"
"ALRIGHT, IMMA DO THIS THING!", Denji turned to Beam animatedly as he detached the chains of his arm saws.
"BEAM! TURN INTO A SHARK!"
"Is that really it?!"
"Isn't it something else?!", Angel shouted in disbelief at the sight in front of him, "Like shooting chains from your arms and hooking them on buildings?!"
Angel couldn't believe that after all that, Chainsaw had decided not to go for the most obvious answer, as he had expected him to, but instead Angel had watched in shock as he mounted up the shark fiend like a horse, using the chains as a bridle.
"Say what?!", Denji questioned incredulously, "This is the correct answer!"
"Right Beam!?"
"CORRECT, CORRECT, CORRECT, CORRECT!", Beams shark-form garbled out, the chain-bridle firmly in place in his maw. With that Denji yanked the chain, him and Beam taking off into the air, leaving Angel in the dust.
"YEE HAAW! GIDDY UP, BEAM!"
Reze was perched on the side of the building, clinging onto a window frame as Typhoons winds ripped up the street block. Then she heard something over the howling of the wind, the revving of saws…
She turned her head, averting her gaze from Topknot, 'You should've stayed down Den-'
"Ahahaha!", Reze's annoyance abated as she fell into a fit of laughter, after that talk she gave him about applying his powers, and he rides that stupid shark fiend towards her like a horse!
"That's so funny!"
"THERE YOU ARE… CHAINSAW!", Typhoon roared behind her as Denji closed in on her. Reze clamped down on her laughter, remembering the situation, 'he always does find some way to make me laugh… but this needs to end before escaping this damn city becomes impossible…'
"DENJI, I'LL MAKE YOU REGRET REVIVING!", the pressure was well and truly on, and Reze had lost her patience about twenty minutes ago.
"BEAM, DON'T MAKE ME REGRET THIS!", Denji barked as he spurred him closer to Reze and the Devil coming up behind her, cars and concrete swirling within it, tearing up the street.
"YES SIR!"
Sections of the building blew outwards as Reze fired shot after shot towards Denji as he steadily closed in towards her, the winds of Typhoon only delaying his advance
"Your aim really sucks!", Denji began taunting Reze as her shots flew past him, his newly found mobility already paying dividends.
"You're a cockroach!", Reze growled in response, blasting upwards from her perch in an attempt to retreat back to a safe distance.
"CHAINSAAW!", Typhoon slammed one of its appendages haphazardly into the building, aiming to cut Denji off from his pursuit. Both were too late, however, as Denji and Beam deftly dodged Typhoon's swing, before quickly lunging upwards, Reze's ascent being too slow to avoid Denji's swing.
"Ow!", Reze's cry of pain was muted, it wasn't the first time she'd got a limb cut off, but she was still surprised that Denji had improved so much in such a short time. 'He's a fast learner… should've guessed', she grimaced as she blasted herself backwards with her hands, 'he did take to the swimming lessons quickly after all...'.
"Darn, what a waste!", Denji was the one doing the taunting now, "I went and cut off a perfectly good-looking leg!"
"LADY REZE!", seeing Reze under pressure Typhoon called out in a guttural howl, "TAKE MY BLOOD!". With that Typhoon spat a glob of blood, the wind carrying it to Reze, splattering over her, a new leg sprouting out near-instantaneously as the blood found its way into her mouth.
'Eughhh, Devil blood sucks…', Reze grumbled internally, the rancid taste lingering in her mouth. Still Typhoon had been very useful to her so far, if it was just her against Denji and all those other devil hunters she'd have been in an even worse state than she already was.
"Oh good!", Denji exclaimed as he saw the leg grow back, only to catch himself after the fact, 'No, she's my enemy, I need to bring her in!'.
"Wait, not good!"
"This is just absurd!", Reze was getting tired of this whole situation, she was behind schedule, she was relying on a devil that tried to killed her the other day to keep herself in the fight, and she had to fight another hybrid while he was riding a giant shark!
Denji, meanwhile, was in full battle mode again, and he'd set his sights on a new target, directing Beam directly towards Typhoon. 'Reze's tough enough as is, no way I'm lettin' her heal again!'.
He sliced his chainsaw through Typhoon as he and Beam flew past.
"GYAAAAHHH!", Typhoon wailed, its scream a horrifying mix of a baby's cry and the howling of the storm.
"Man, I've got it easy!", Denji said viciously as he tore into Typhoon, "All I hafta' do is swing my chainsaws around like an idiot!"
"STAAAY AWAAYY!", Typhoon's howls of pain and terror echoed across the battlefield, as Denji's wholesale butchery continued. Until all was silent, the winds dissipating, with all that remained of the devil being a pile of guts and gore spilling from the building it first smashed through.
"Now where's Reze?!", Denji and Beam hovered in the air, looking down upon the carnage below, scanning the area for the other hybrid.
"HUH?!", a sound came from above, the whistling of the air alerting Beam to the Bomb devil coming crashing down from above, "LORD CHAINSAW!". Beam moved quickly, twisting himself around to shield his rider from the blow.
*BOOM*
A massive explosion lit up the sky, with the momentum of the blast shooting both hybrids off into the mid-distance, towards the docklands.
"Yowtch, that hurt!", Denji griped as he crawled his way out of the shark fiend's mouth, the air being filled with the smell of seafood, "Thanks for the save Beam!". Denji thanked his buddy, the fiend having twisted and swallowed Denji just as the explosion ripped into them. Beam gave a few weak gasps in response.
Denji watched as a figure gracefully dropped down from the sky, landing in front of him in a crouched position, silent as a cat.
Standing up, Reze stared at him for a moment before breaking the silence
"Oh, Denjiii…", Reze called out in a sickly-sweet singsong, "Isn't it about time you gave up?
"Hmmm… Nope!", Denji responded sassily as the two hybrids stared at each other in a stand-off. A stand-off quickly brought to an end as Reze fired a shots from her finger, blowing off one of Denji's arms just as its saw began to whirl to life. The blast sent Denji flying off the roof, and down towards the jetty below.
Reze jumped down from the building, following the wounded boy, only to find him already standing. 'Tch… so stubborn'.
"This is just annoying now", not once on any mission did Reze have a target so determined to thwart all her plans, from refusing her offer to run away, to simply refusing to stay down!
"Could you cut to the chase and die for me?"
Denji released something as she said this, 'she says she is in a rush to kill me, and she doesn't seem too worried about destroying everythin', so why has she taken this long, why not do it at the school?'
"In that case, you should've just cut to the chase and killed me the first time we met!", Denji shot back. Then there was silence for a moment, Reze staring at the boy before deciding to ignore his observation altogether.
"There's nowhere left for you to run", Reze responded, nearly robotically.
"I dunno about that", Denji turned his head, motioning towards the expanse of water behind him. The lack of a response from Reze fuelling his confidence that his plan will work.
"You shouldn't have taught me how to swim", he thought back to that night at the school, "Big mistake"
"Oh really?", Reze taunted Denji, "Are you going to swim away?"
Denji stared at her, and she stared back. Denji pulled his cord, with Reze shooting another spark with a snap, Denji's arm exploding in a ball of fire, the flesh being incinerated as he was rocked by the blast. When the smoke cleared all that remained was-
"A chain?", Reze exclaimed in confusion at this development, 'this didn't happen befo-'.
Her thoughts were cut short as the chains shot out from the remains of Denji's arms, rapidly closing in on her, the serrated chains wrapping her up in an instant, digging into her flesh and quickly tugging her straight towards Denji.
In only a few seconds, Reze found herself pressed flush against Denji's body, all her limbs immobilised, as she and Denji were teetering at the edge of the dock.
"Wh-?!", Reze squeaked out in shock, not expecting the speed of the chains, Denji simply growled a question in her ear in response.
"Can ya explode when you're wet?", Reze felt a flash of panic as Denji fell backwards, and then the cold water of the bay hit her and she knew she was beat, her fuse wires wouldn't explode when she was in here.
And honestly, she couldn't bring herself to care, as they sunk further into the water, their metal heads dragging them down.
She could feel herself going numb.
She felt the water entering her lungs, and she didn't care, after all the lives she's taken, today alone, wasn't this the least she deserved?
They hit the bottom, and Reze was reminded of the body below her, she looked at him as her vision started turning back, but she didn't see the chainsaw head or the knife-like teeth.
Instead she seen a blonde boy smiling up at her, doing a back-float in the water, throwing her a goofy smile as she laughed with him.
One last thought crossed her mind as her world turned dark,.
'Denji… I already told you why I didn't…'
AN: Well, the end of the Bomb Girl arc is rapidly approaching (just like my dissertation deadline), but there's still a bit left to go, and I have plenty of chapters planned out as of now. However I will be be writing a bit more slowly for a while, as, with this chapter I have now written over twice as much of this as I have for my Dis. In the meantime, any feedback on this work so far would be greatly appreciated, as i would like to correct any problems with my writing, as well as maybe add some more POV's to early chapters in the future.
Many thanks again to everyone who has been reading!