Bonus Chapter: Biological Armament on Help
Catharsis... That was the feeling felt by Lily, the Lord of the renowned Witch Hunt Village. Famous for having horrific practices against 'witches', but still widely known in the Sabasa region.
Lily smiled at the thought. She had no real attachment to this place—quite the opposite, actually. She held nothing but disdain for it. The most value it had for her was a free source of experiments and materials to further her own agenda.
Just like the recently captured witch, her guards had caught for her, an average-looking man, if not for the decent build he featured. At the very least, he would provide her with a good supply of resources.
"Tell me again… Where did you find this odd man? I don't think he hails from this village." Lily questioned, watching her guards deposit him into a cell in her basement.
"On the outskirts of the village, my Lord. We found him knocked out and soaking wet. We haven't the slightest clue how he got here." The first guard answered.
"No weapons, no provisions either… A strange set of clothing as well." The second guard added, closing the cell gates.
"Hmm… No matter, you are dismissed." Lily waved them off, moving along further into her labyrinth of experiments. A section of the home no one but her was allowed in.
The dripping-wet man awoke with a groan on the cold floor sometime later.
"Aargh… Where am I?" He slowly got onto his feet, disoriented from the slumber of such a long time.
"…This isn't the ocean. I'm in jail, did the remnants of the Dress organization capture me?!" The teenager panicked, before taking a moment to assess his situation.
Taking a look around, he noted the plainly medieval look of the cell. The stunning lack of technology made him reconsider his initial stance.
'The Judas laboratory would never imprison me in such a cell… But the question is, who would?'
The sudden feeling of dread swirled within himself, the feelings of dozens of individuals' worth of pain flooding through his brain.
"W-what is this…" The boy keeled over, a sudden but devastating headache taking him by surprise.
'This suffering… Why can I feel it?! I haven't transformed…'
Had the parasite within him evolved during his time in the ocean, maybe their bodies would have grown more compatible with time after all.
An unmistakable aura of control surrounded some of the emotional senses he felt.
There was someone here… In charge of this misery.
He had to stop them, stop them from creating another person like him…
Sumire would agree, wherever she was. He couldn't afford to let anyone suffer like they did.
His eyes turned into a virulent yellow, as his body began contorting violently…
"No! I'm no witch! You can't do this to me!" The young man screamed and wailed, as Lily allowed a Suck Vore to devour his essence.
Soon enough, his objections turned to garbled moans.
Just like all the rest, he would be slowly sucked dry.
"Already given in… How pathetic, considering your pleas of mercy." Lily laughed, condescendingly looking down on her subject.
The very mansion she called home shaking violently ceased her revelry, drawing her attention to the loud bang she heard coming from upstairs.
The doors to her lab blew open, revealing the intruder she had unwittingly invited in.
"BARU! BARU! BARU!" The blue-skinned creature before her yelled, a writhing mass of flesh-like hair swaying behind it. Its appearance similar to a cracked shell with glowing eyes peering from the darkness within.
"What the hell are you?!" Lily backed away from the seemingly mindless creature.
"BARU!" The entity yelled before a nearby Iron Maiden slammed over him and began trying to extract his essence.
Lily kept backing away though, in shock at the new situation she found herself in. A small part of her felt relief that whatever barged in here was stupid enough to get tunnel vision and focus on her.
Her feeling of relief soon dissipated when the Iron Maiden began melting into a puddle of goo.
From beneath the liquid remnants of the Iron Maiden emerged the blue entity, still furious at his prey.
Lily conjured her tentacles, which soon replaced her arms as she prepared to fight for her life.
"BARU! BARU!" The entity screamed, contorting his body and hardening his skin. The skin on his forearms pushed out into elongated spikes, closely resembling sharp blades.
"…Who are you?! How dare you enter my domain?!" Lily roared indignantly, attacking the intruder by slamming her tentacle into his chest.
The tentacle pierced straight through his chest and went clean through, yet her target showed no response.
"Baru…" The creature muttered, before slicing the offending appendage off with its bladed forearm.
"Aaargh!" Lily screamed in pain, holding her now severed limb and flailing around wildly.
Lily responded in kind by wrapping her remaining appendage around the neck of her foe and violently flinging it through the ceiling of the basement.
The form of the creature smashed into the stone above and out of her sight.
"Guh…" Lily let out a heavy breath, trying to hold herself together.
The agonizing pain she felt from her severed limb was debilitating, but she was certain she could replace it.
That thing she fought… The clothes were of that soaking wet man from before. He had some sort of power, a power she had no idea how to describe.
"UOOOAH!" Her remaining tentacle was tugged on by an oppressive force, pulling her up violently.
"No!" Lily gasped as she was forced through the opening and into her main study, the room now devastated by their battle.
A searing pain emerged from her tentacle, right where the blue-skinned menace's hands were.
Pained screaming erupted from Lily as the flesh of her tentacled arm bubbled and boiled over, before dissolving into a puddle of liquid.
"S-stay back!" Lily yelled, reeling from the loss of her only means of defending herself.
"…" The creature before her shifted its attention to several doors opening.
The opening of the doors preceded the arrival of a variety of her creations. Worm Villagers and Suck Vores alike trotted over to surround the pair.
"Don't just sit there! Get him!" Lily commanded, setting the horde of half-monsters to dispatch her assailant.
The entity hesitated, sensing that same aura of control over each and every one of these strange beings. It was clear that they had no will of their own, forced to do the bidding of this woman he had attacked.
The scent of this woman… The underlying feeling of resentment and cruelty. It made Baoh sick to his stomach. He wanted to make her disappear. He wouldn't take any innocent lives, however. He refused to spill the blood of the faultless.
His hair hardened, with perforated spikes aiming in all directions. The spikes in question glowed a bright blue as if they were alight…
Lily's eyes widened once she realized where the creature was looking, but it was too late for her to do anything about it.
A stream of spikes fired out in all directions, managing to avoid hitting any of the monsters surrounding the entity. But they were not his target, his true aim being the pot of unknown liquid to the side of the room.
When a single spike made contact with the hot metallic surface, it combusted nearly instantly. The explosion was made far more devastating due to the presence of extremely flammable chemicals on hand in the study.
The force of it alone was enough to send Lily through her own windows and out of her mansion.
As if on cue, the entire village was alerted by the spectacular event. The entire populace made their way over to the now burning mansion, which now had a massive hole in it.
"What's happened?!" A village woman asked amid the chaos.
"It's a fire! Lily's mansion just exploded!" A nearby man pointed at the raging fires.
The guards loyal to Lily were in pandemonium, trying their best to keep the peace.
All manner of peace was broken when they caught sight of their Lord, a bloodied and tentacled mess barely conscious in the streets.
Gasps and hushed whispers filled the collective crowd, but that soon turned into unbridled rage.
Lily had been the one to introduce this witch hunt, yet here she was showing herself to be one. Countless men, women, and children had been turned in and captured by her guards never to be seen again.
"She's a witch!" Roared several members of the crowd.
Soon, the mob of concerned villagers became an angry mob. A mob that certainly had a score to settle once they realized how they had been deceived and taken advantage of.
Lily herself had finally gotten on her feet, her tentacles still bleeding profusely, and now her entire body was covered in burns and soot.
"…Not like this." The green-haired woman muttered. Anger bubbled out from behind her pained expression as the crowd jeered at her.
"You witch! I knew you were bad news from the start!" A man shouted.
"You and your mother should have been thrown out from the start!" A woman agreed, glaring at her.
"What have you done with our family members?! Where are the people you took?!" An elderly woman inquired, unable to believe her eyes.
"Haha… I used them as experiments! How do you think I achieved this power?!" Lily madly laughed, finally revealing her true self to her subjects.
"Experiments?!" A young child asked, hiding behind their mother.
"You all deserved it! You made my life hell! I wanted revenge for all the wrongs you've done to me and my mother!" The green-haired woman argued, using the remains of her sliced tentacle to threaten any who got too close.
Heavy thuds soon approached their position, before the blue entity who ruined everything leaped from behind the wall and into the sky.
It landed gracefully, carrying several incapacitated Suck Vores who had turned back into humans and Worm Villagers.
"What is that thing?!" A guard drew his sword, facing down the blue-skinned threat.
"Eri?!" A man yelled, approaching the monster and grabbing hold of his fiancée. Despite her new appendages, he could never mistake his love for anyone else.
"Sister?!" A young woman took a small child from the arms of the monster.
More and more people reclaimed their loved ones before the entity turned its eyes on Lily. No pleas from the guards could stop the actions of the families who longed for their loved ones.
"…You've destroyed it all!" She yelled, cornered on one side by angry villagers and on the other by whatever this monster was. She flung her remaining tentacle at the creature's head.
"BARU! BARU! BARU!" The creature yelled, joining their palms and summoning an arc of lightning when they were separated once more.
The arc of lightning fired at Lily, hitting her directly in the chest and flooding her entire body with 60,000 volts of electricity.
Her very skin burst open at various points and blackened as she was electrocuted. Mothers and fathers covered the eyes and ears of their children as their Lord screeched in pain.
Eventually, she started foaming at the mouth and convulsing, prompting her attacker to stop.
Lily collapsed onto the ground, having died of severe ventricular fibrillation. Her charred body continued to spasm and twitch, even as minutes passed from her summary execution.
No one said anything, having no words to express how they felt about the situation. While they were disgusted by her actions, immediate execution was not something they had on their minds.
The guards nervously backed away from the blue-skinned monster, not wishing to share the fate of their previous Lord.
Without another word, the monster before them leaped into the burning mansion to retrieve more victims of Lily.
Scores of men, women, and children were saved from the raging fires. But not everyone was happy, once the creature started saving the corpses of those unlucky enough to meet their end in that mansion.
At the very least, they could be given closure and the opportunity to mourn the losses of their loved ones…
Yet they still had no idea who this mysterious person was, nor what kind of monster it seemed to be.
"…Mister?" A young girl tugged at the blue-skinned monster after he retrieved the final survivors and bodies.
"…" The monster looked down at the young girl, whose eyes were filled with a mixture of uncertainty and a sense of wonder.
"Thank you for bringing mommy back…" She gratefully said, before her father pulled her away.
All around him, he could sense the emotions of those staring at him.
Various states of fear, anxiety, and gratitude could be smelt in the air.
Especially from another green-haired woman, with an odd tattoo on her face.
Her smell was very similar to that of Sumire, someone who had been experimented on. But he could smell the hidden gift she had, something that made her special and unlike others.
She was very fixated on both him and the corpse of his fallen enemy, feeling intense joy towards him… And a profound satisfaction upon looking at the body of her captor being carted off and her accomplices being jailed.
'Quite concerning…' His inner thoughts rang out.
The creature voluntarily disengaged its combat form, reverting back to the guise of a human before the eyes of the villager.
"What's your name?" A man asked, keeping his distance from the teenage boy.
"Ikuro Hashizawa." The Japanese boy replied in a thick accent, thankful that his English was decent enough to converse and understand most phrases and sentences.
"What was all that? You turned into a monster… Are you a witch too?!" An elder accused, dressed in pure white religious garments.
"…Witch? I don't understand. Why would you think that?" The boy tilted his head.
"How else could you run into a burning building with no injuries? Shooting lightning at people… Leaping into the air like that. It's unnatural! You're using magic, to has to be." The elder continued.
"Come off it! He just saved our people! I don't care if he's monster or witch, he's alright in my book!" A young man defended, getting into an argument with the priest.
"What kind of monster are you?" A child asked, curious to know more about the man.
"Magic… Monster? Where am I?" Ikuro questioned, questioning his sanity upon hearing their inquiries.
"Witch Hunt Village, near Sabasa. Some of Lily's collaborators found you in a field nearby." A farmer answered.
"…Sabasa? How far is that from Japan?" Ikuro asked, looking nervous. He hadn't ever heard of a place called Sabasa before.
"What's Japan?" A nearby guard asked.
Ilias looked on from the Heavens, her attention having been caught by this odd man.
"I rather enjoyed watching that." She smirked, replaying the last moments of that Lily.
She liked this human. Even if he did possess an odd power, he was no monster. She felt no darkness within him.
No spirits of power, no mercy for monsters…
He could be a perfect weapon, if she were to entice him into her service.
Her very own little biological phenomenon.
AN:
A comment on my previous chapter inspired me to write this bonus chapter. In this version of events, Lily gets folded.
Baoh was one of the first things Araki ever wrote, about two volumes in total. You can think of it as a prelude to JJBA. It's not in the same universe as JJBA, but he appears in ASBR as DLC.
His abilities and design were the prototype for Kars, and I'm sure that Araki played around with the idea of superhumans using Baoh before moving on to vampires and Pillar Men. Kind of get a Star Platinum vibe from his look as well.
Think of it as a non-canon what if. Ikuro Hashizawa does not play around with his enemies. Thinking back, I realized that both he and Lucia (the other green haired woman in the story) have some common ground.