The Durgasaur dragon rammed against the hyperdimensional gate into a dark world. It seemed to possess no skill in performing a safe landing. The fact that there was an angry female knight on its back could be an explanation.
The monster accidentally released its prisoner onto the webbed ground. Rie and Riamu rolled for some time against a slimy and rugged surface. The short-haired girl coughed before realizing the terror that unfolded before her.
The dragon opened its mouth, but its desire to eat the youngster was being disturbed by the Black Hydrahead’s coming attacks. Its head got battered by the merciless energy attack of Naniwa’s drill sword. Its armor was ripped as if by a tornado in some places.
That didn’t help the warrior much as Durgasaur anticipated her next aggression and easily slashed Black Hydrahead in the chest. Shrilling in pain, Naniwa couldn’t avoid the strong gust of wind from the Asoraku’s beating wings. She hit one of the black ancient ruins and dropped to the ground like the others. The monster didn’t give much chance for a rematch as it slammed its mammoth foot to pin her down. There were cracking sounds as the girl’s armor tried its best to handle the tonnage.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” greeted Durgasaur as he enjoyed stepping on the Red Hydrahead. It gave off the widest fang-filled smile.
“Makara! ARGH!” called Riamu. He wasn’t in good shape himself. Blood began to seep all over his gakuran from the open wound on his shoulder. Agony got him roughed up.
“You can shout as loud as you can, Boy. Only those who abandoned their hope can find us down here.” Durgasaur saw Rie’s terrified look and started speaking with tunes. “Through our last night on shore, drink to the foam. Until we meet once more. Here’s wishing you a happy voyage home.”
The somewhat calming warble in dissonance with the eerie atmosphere of the dark world. The sky was black with a strange reddish hue. Moving air howled between the black stone pagodas like the cry of a thousand ghosts. Rie and Riamu’s hair was soaked with swelter as the temperature there was more than they could tolerate. And the smell...
“Your place smells worse than a bad day at the gym, Durgasaur,” ridiculed Riamu in defiance.
“I apologize for the mess. If you have too many skeletons in your closet, the smell would eventually leak out,” replied Durgasaur with a chuckle before unveiling the multiple slithering tongues. He then simply stopped for a brief moment as if hit by an epiphany. “I remember now. It was just a senseless rage before. It is focused and clear now. I remember why I hate Rao so much.” There were gritting noises in his teeth. “The way Rao abandoned us in America was unforgivable.”
“Wait, you know this... thing, Anija?!” asked Rie in confusion. She coughed heavily between the sharp breaths.
Durgasaur laughed hard with a suitably monstrous voice. “Our relationship is more akin to a butcher and its meat.”
Riamu didn’t reply. He didn’t even do anything. The putrid air had taken its toll on the teenager. The world became increasingly blurry around him before it turned black entirely.
Durgasaur’s face came closer. “He can’t escape the slaughter no matter how hard he tries....”
“I guess life isn’t as simple as an anima, huh?” sputtered Riamu as his consciousness slowly left his body.
***
Riamu peeked his head above the thick mist that clung on the cold ground. He forced himself out of grogginess to stand up. “Hello?” he called with a voice that echoed in the distance.
The place looked strange. He wasn’t sure that it’s the same place as the webbed temple ground before. The entire world was now simply a gloomy grey place.
He saw movements to his right. Someone wobbly stood up. It was Rie. “Ri-chan!” he called.
His sister needed to narrow her eyes without glasses. “Uuuh... Oh, it’s you, Anija!”
“Hang on, I’m coming―” Riamu tripped on something and fell.
There was an ouch! It wasn’t something, it was someone. Riamu looked back at Naniwa who lay prone on the foggy soil.
The tanned girl with the shoulder-length hair and ombre highlight was definitely not pleased to see him. “Uh, sorry, I didn’t see you there,” said Riamu with a sheepish smile.
“I’ve heard jokes about my height, but this is the worst,” complained Naniwa as she was being helped to get back on her feet. While cleaning her hoodie, the girl saw Rie was there too. “Well, so much for secret identities.”
“So, you’re the warrior that fought the monster before?” asked Rie, enlivened.
“Fought and lost. It seems that I can’t impress your brother with my heroics today,” Naniwa snorted. “Now we’re ended up here. How did we get here anyway?”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Afterlife sucks...,” Riamu muttered, preparing for the worst.
“Hey, there’s something there!” Rie pointed at a lump some distance from their location. The three lost teenagers hurryingly went closer.
Riamu stopped in his tracks. It was not a simple mount. He recognized it from a war movie he watched on an online streaming service last month. It was an old, Second World War era Type 5 Chi-Ri spider tank, half-broken and abandoned. “Hagane...,” he said, reading the fading insignia he touched on the turret side.
As the fog subsided, more vehicles and pieces of machinery were revealed. Self-propelled guns, heavy artillery, and military trucks were scattered across the endless grey plain. There were even some saucer-shaped jet fighters, carrier hovercrafts, and at least one American gorilla-shaped combat robot with a singular red eye that reflected Riamu’s figure. “Looks like one of those airplane graveyards.”
Sounds of a siren blared suddenly. Swooshing sounds were heard all around as multiple flickers of light darted across the dark sky. Each of them then exploded in a blinding explosion. Rie yelped as her sight was paralyzed for a moment. A moment later, strong whirlwinds struck the three teenagers and threw them to the misty ground.
“It’s the graveyard of empires,” proclaimed the horrendous voice that echoed throughout the world as burning atomic mushroom clouds rose from the jagged horizon. The three teenagers needed to cover their ears.
“I should’ve known. It’s you again!” Riamu barked at the massive face of Durgasaur that rose from the ground. The teenager needed to shelter his face from the scorching heat around him.
“It’s more than that. It’s you.” The gaping mouth opened and revealed a familiar figure with the back of his head fused to the monster’s tongue.
“Jintsu?”
Jintsu’s voice was that of a thousand people. “You’re the one who took my powers away.”
Riamu was intense for a second before relaxing. He figured it all out. “Oh, I get it. This is an illusion. That can’t be Jintsu. He’s still healing in the base.”
They heard the disembodied voice of Durgasaur. It seemed to have originated from the entire giant head. “His body is there. His mind is here. Those who I have taken here are transported into this realm. Those who survived anyway.” The Asoraku snickered. “If you’re not strong enough, you will be a part of it for eternity. Jintsu is just beginning to accept this.”
Jintsu’s movements were stiff as a zombie. The tongue followed him as he moved out from Durgasaur’s mouth. “You are wrong if you can take my spot next to my sister. You will stay here and I will be free!”
Riamu took a step back. Everyone else was as concerned as he was. This felt too real. “Uh-huh, this can’t be good,” said Naniwa.
“You self-centered bitch!” shouted the other voice that sent chills down her spine.
“Ka... Kanon?” She saw more tongues slithered their way out of the barong mask like a pit of snakes. Naniwa knew them, each one of them. They were her Hydrahead teammates. “Minna?”
“Naniwa abandoned us when we needed Naniwa...,” groaned Myoko as the broken Green Hydrahead. Her helmet was shattered all the way to the chin, revealing her identity as an enraged daburu teenager with a freckled face.
“At the slightest chance, you bailed...,” said the White Hydrahead with disdain. “You were never one of us.”
“No, that’s not true...,” murmured Naniwa with a sob. The Black Hydrahead looked down. “I’m a Hydrahead....”
Riamu wasn’t even sure that reaching her was a good idea anymore. “Naniwa....”
Kanon was pitiless. She played with her bobby pin as her mouth bombarded. “Then prove it.” The words cut through Naniwa’s mind. “You will join us in America.”
The short-haired girl gasped before slowly taking her first steps toward the massive head. No matter how absurd it was, it was the right thing to do for Naniwa. It was the way to atone for herself. “I’m worthy to be a Hydrahead. I know I am,” sobbed her along the way.
Riamu and Rie called her. They shouted at the top of their lungs for her to snap out of it and come back. But they sounded like distant noises for Naniwa. Her world tunneled into the figure of Kanon who stood before Durgasaur’s mouth. How the monster’s tongue dug into her friend’s head wasn’t ungodly anymore. Naniwa was longing to embrace the welcoming hug.
There was nothing Riamu could do about it. He couldn’t even move his feet anymore. He glanced at the terrified Rie. They would be trapped in that hell forever.
But then, he heard a distinct noise among the otherworldly cracking sounds of discarded war machines and howling air. It was metallic. It rang in and out of his sense of hearing. It sounded like a metal bar rolling closer and closer.
Riamu extended his left hand to reach the incorporeal energy. Once he felt something solid in his hand, he grabbed it. Riamu then stabbed the air in front of him.
There was silence. The gale stopped. The dust settled. Then, the tongue Hydraheads screamed in agony as a massive earthquake rocked the place.
It didn’t take long before the whole world began to be torn apart by the pointed energy.
In an instant, Riamu was back in the real world. Inside the webbed tunnel, he stabbed the chest of Durgasaur’s tongue figure with a drill sword. The monster’s true form convulsed for a moment before exploding into disgusting crimson goo.
The massive dragon roared with a voice that echoed in the dark world. Its beating wings formed tempests of fog and even toppled some of the black pylon structures around him. The monster thrashed about before crashing into the opposite wall and gloriously erupting as a thick blood-like deluge.
The spattered Riamu froze in his pose. The Black Hydrahead too, still extending her hand to throw her drill sword to her friend before. The teenager chuckled out of confusion and the heroine followed.
The drill sword dropped on the webbed ground with a clang. Naniwa approached Riamu to kneel in front of him. “Hontoni arigatou,” she said.
“I won’t judge,” replied Riamu weakly. He rested his back on the sloped wall. “He won’t stop, huh?”
The female Hydrahead shook her head. “He knows your mark from the moment you received Jintsu’s powers. Either you let him find you or you find him first.”
“So much for a normal life,” Riamu sniffed. He glanced to his side. Next to him, Rie was still unconscious. “Mortal danger is the antidote for a fixed mind. So be it if it’s my destiny to be a Hydrahead.”
Naniwa offered him support to get up. “Welcome to the club. Let’s get out of here before my teleporter runs out of bearing.”
Riamu accepted it while taking Rie too. Just as their bodies began to glow, something crossed his mind. “What’s with America?” he asked.
The three teenagers disappeared from the tunnels in an electric blue explosion of Berliner radiation.