Excuse me?

You don't need to hear the rest because it's obvious how the fight ended, otherwise we wouldn't be here? You're such a fucking spoilsport, you know that? If you've listened to me so far, at least let me finish properly.

Oh, you'll let me continue? Thank you, that's very kind. You've kind of put me off a bit, but thank you.

Ahem.

I wasn't even alive. I was closer to death than even the zombies that roamed the hotel looking for prey. Still, when that thing entered me, I noticed it immediately. Everything changed.

Only one thing changed for the better. Naturally, I felt stronger. I felt capable of doing anything, even. As for the changes for the worse, there were too many to name them all. I will focus on the most important ones.

For example, I felt like my brain was splitting in two. Like a bucket with a hole in it, I would never be able to hold that much water. No matter how hard I tried, it would just spill out. No, it was even simpler. There was no hole in it. It was like trying to contain all the water in the ocean in a single bucket.

Naturally, it was impossible. I was going to break!

For example, I had believed that even the air I breathed had become oppressive inside the soul-devouring barrier, but it was nothing compared to the torture of simply existing with this thing inside me.

I felt strong again. Stronger than I had ever been. But, at the same time, I had the feeling that it would rip me to shreds as soon as I took a single step forward. It was as if I had transformed into an impenetrable wall when what I needed to be was a spear.

Aha, I'm not even explaining myself well, but now you're interested, huh? Now you want the details? Maybe I really should skip straight to the end of the fight after all. Okay, okay, don't pull out the sword, hey. That's not necessary. I want to have a professional relationship with you.

As I was saying, I felt both ways at the same time. Strong and made of glass. And the pain wouldn't stop. Of course, I had hoped it would, but even now it hasn't stopped.

It's constant torture, even though it was weak enough to need me. Like the damn bastard was constantly poking around in my brain. Stirring my brains.

And even that description didn't do justice to what it's like to live this way. It's just words.

In any case, I took a step forward and didn't break. Yes, I did. I was in control from the beginning. Nothing special happened there.

Plague didn't step back, didn't run away. Ridiculous. It was supposed to be little more than an animal. Was its hunger stronger than its survival instinct, or what? What was going on here?

In any case, a fight was inevitable.

Lucia was lying in the middle of us. Of this whole mess.

Straining to breathe, struggling even to keep her eyes open. She didn’t have long.

What I wanted, huh? As if I'd practiced it a thousand times, I reached down and ran a finger across her wound, tracing its shape. When I reached the other side, the wound was already closed. It was as if it wasn't a cut but the opening of a zipper. It was that easy.

Lucia was so out of it that I wasn't sure she had even noticed. But now that I knew she would be fine, I could focus on the fight. My only ally for a long time, the only reason I had been able to get this far, had turned out to be the real last obstacle.

Of course.

I smiled. I didn't move from my spot; I didn't need to. She was already coming for me. In less than a second, she would be on me.

That's what she did. She tried to throw me to the ground with all the weight of her body, but she didn't succeed. A sound like bones breaking. I didn't have bones and neither did Plague, of course. The suit she was wearing did, but that wasn't it.

Something emerged violently from my missing arm, as if acting as a replacement. Some kind of bone scythe.

I was sure this didn't make the list of things I wanted, but hey, it was a weapon. Enduring the enormous pain, I brandished it at my enemy. But, as if she'd already known that would happen, Plague leapt over the attack. She didn't fall.

Instead of falling, she grabbed onto a metal bar hanging from the crumbling ceiling. It was a precarious position. At any moment the wreckage of the roof could collapse on us, but what did she care, of course.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

From there she jumped straight at me. I wanted to push Lucia away, to find her the closest thing to a safe place in the middle of this mess, but I didn't have time.

Her tentacles and my bone scythe collided. Without her even trying to evade my attacks, we collided again and again. Did she think she would outlast my new weapon? I couldn't tell if she was wrong or not. This was all new to me.

I let out a grunt.

It wasn't as easy as it might seem. It wasn't at all that the scythe was not a separate weapon, but an extension of my body. I could wield it with greater freedom of movement if I could hold it in my hands. It looked impressive and terrifying, but that was all.

I decided that I wouldn't let the exchange of blows go on too long. If I was careless, I would lose this exchange for which I had every chance of winning. Besides, I was frightened at the thought of that thing taking control of my body. At the time I wasn't sure why I still had control over myself.

I thought, of course, that the too-good-to-be-true thing wasn't and it would snatch that control away from me as soon as it could. At least I wanted to get all my affairs in order before that happened.

In contrast to my clumsiness, Plague moved with more speed and flexibility with each passing second. Not to mention that the impacts were getting stronger and stronger. Thanks to Death, I could get back on my feet. I could fight. But neither of us had been in great condition to begin with.

The same went for Plague actually. We were two creatures on the brink of death fighting for a reason that couldn't have been more stupid.

Strangely, that was what angered me the most. Why hadn't she run away while she still had the chance? Why hadn't she listened to her survival instinct, which ruled all animals? Enough was enough.

This was more than enough.

I gave everything I had to end this quickly. But if it were that easy, it would have been over long ago. Plague possessed dozens of tentacles. They could cut through the air like whips and change direction in the middle of an attack.

In other words, he had virtually no limitations, while I could attack from a single point. Clumsily, on top of that. Not only because the bone scythe was part of my body, but because it was too big. It obviously threw me off balance when attacking.

Still... I wasn't the only one who had been on the brink of death. Only Death's help had allowed me to keep fighting.

How was it possible for Plague to remain so strong with no help other than her own willpower? Something didn't fit. Something didn't make sense.

Every time I cut her, black blood flew everywhere. It was also accompanied by red blood, of course. The vampire was dead and Plague wore his body like a suit, but that didn't mean she'd sucked him dry. There was still blood to spare inside that wrapping to spill.

I brandished the bone scythe once more.

I thought I had cut off a tentacle, but it was only Edmond Dantes' remaining arm. He had only had one arm from the beginning. Don't you remember we found one of his arms lying in the rubble?

That hadn't helped me much. More tentacles emerged from the stump of the arm, the hole I had just created. Incredible, there seemed to be no end to them. Could it be possible for them to regenerate?

Until I killed this abomination, would it continue to regenerate its tentacles and even reattach the parts of its body that I cut off? Like the tide lapping against the shore, it wouldn't stop. Yes, it surely was.

I wasn't winning, but at least I got it to give ground. We passed over Lucia's body and continued to pull away. The whole hotel was a death trap, but Plague was still the most dangerous thing in this place, so I rejoiced at that fact as if I had gotten her to safety.

As I took one more step forward, a random step, the ground under my right foot gave way. It was just bad luck. But no matter, even something so trivial could change the course of a battle.

My body sank in that direction, following the ground. My foot almost got stuck in the hole.

Plague pierced my body with twelve tentacles at the same time. I had basically skipped my own horrible death, but considering all the suffering I had experienced in this other world I didn't even feel lucky.

My mouth filled with blood. I felt my whole body shaking.

I raised my head. The sight that met me was Edmond Dantes' face splitting in half. He deserved all that and more for what he had done to me, but Jesus, that will always be disturbing no matter how many times I saw it. Out of it came a tangle of tentacles that reached out towards me.

She wanted to devour me, huh? And she would stop at nothing. Well, fine, I'd let her take a good bite if she wanted to so badly.

The tentacles burrowed inside me, searching for my soul. The tangle of tentacles didn't have a face, but I could almost see it smiling like the predator it was. I "smiled" back.

I swung the bone scythe once more, splitting Edmond Dantes' corpse and her in half.

I watched her fall. I thought that would be the end, but I still had one last surprise in store. One of her tentacles wrapped around my neck, dragging me into the void as well. My feet skidded on the worn floor. I didn't have long to fall over the edge.

And if I gave her the chance, Plague would climb back up. Or she'd bring me down with her. It just depended on which would hold on longer, my neck or her life.

Crap. I saw her tentacles being buried in the wall of the building.

Shit. I saw her tentacles being buried deep into the wall of the building. I needed more footholds than my frail neck, naturally. Even after all this, it wouldn't stop? She was a living nightmare.

I watched it climb up the building back toward me like some kind of giant spider (I couldn't help but think of a spider, despite the tentacles) and my legs began to shake.

I had to focus. I lowered my scythe arm. Slowly, I slashed the tentacle over my neck.

Plague fell, but not very far. She still had the tentacles on the front of the building supporting her.

She wouldn't stop. She would never stop. But I also had great willpower.

Simply existing was already painful with this thing inside me. Well, I went one step further. As Plague quickly climbed up the front of the building, I grabbed the scythe arm... and ripped it off.

Only to hurl it towards what was left of Plague. She couldn't avoid the attack. She was ripped in half a second time. Her tentacles lost strength, slipping out of the holes in the building, and she fell.

Down and down and down she fell. Far away. I didn't even hear the impact against the ground. I could barely see her from so high up.

But it was enough for me to know that she wasn't moving.

Now... Now I wasn't free, but at least this series of battles was over.

I took a deep breath. What a crazy week.