JULY 26th, 2014.
“Yeah… that’s exactly right,” the soul stealer responds with a sickening grin, “This guy just couldn’t take the pain! You should’ve seen the way his face twisted…”
It tilts its head downward, looking at the three past the top of its eyelids.
“...It was the funniest thing.”
Rushing forward with no hesitation, Seth throws a right hook toward the soul stealer’s head, as it just barely dodges to the right.
“Woah, there…! I’m not used to this bag of meat yet.”
It slams its right elbow into the plates covering Seth’s stomach, as his back recoils and he automatically retreats a few steps behind.
“Dammit…” Seth spits out, placing the back of his hand on his lower jaw. Not only did the soul stealer hit like a truck, but he’s nimble enough to dodge any of his front-on attacks.
How do I deal with this guy?
Before he can answer that question, Kat rushes in front of him to his left side, bringing the scythe up above her shoulders as she swing it in an arc directed at the soul stealer’s chest. In response, his back hits the asphalt as his feet stand firm on it, laughing at Kat’s failed attack.
“Close! You were so close!”
Swinging his leg against the lower half of the snath, his shin connects to it and even with the leverage Kat has, the force knocks her off her feet as she hangs onto the scythe.
“Now!” she yells over to Seth.
As his feet stomp against the ground, creating small indents and cracks across the asphalt, he rushes over to the soul stealer before it can finish its set-up for an attack on Kat. Slamming his fist forward against its stomach, it flies backward, becoming embedded into a nearby brick wall.
“Oh… so your punches do hurt a little…”
It obnoxiously laughs to itself, bringing its hand up and placing it diagonally against its face, covering its eyes to the two of them while only its mouth can be seen.
“I get it… I GET IT NOW! I RECOGNIZE THAT GLARE OF YOURS!”
Pushing itself out of the middle of the brick wall upwards, it grins while holding its head to the sky.
“Of course...! How could I ever forget…”
It bounces its head downward, glaring at Seth dead-on with a smug smile, barely open eyes that reek of sadistic pleasure.
“...The eyes of a murderer.”
In not even a second, Seth’s already just in front of the soul stealer, shoving his fist against its stomach. Instead of exclaiming in pain at each consecutive strike, the soul stealer only laughs heartily, as if it’s enjoying the pain. Meanwhile, Seth’s breathing becomes more and more ragged, as the space between his teeth expands.
“Did I hit a nerve—”
“SHUT THE HELL UP!” Seth cuts it off, sending a fist against its right cheek as it’s beaten further and further into the brick wall. Debris crashes onto the ground and crumbles as Seth refuses to let up the onslaught of blows. But in spite of all that:
The soul stealer keeps laughing.
“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” Seth yells, punching harder and harder, even distorting the skin on the soul stealer’s body.
It keeps laughing, weakly raising an arm, and smiling through it all.
“I WAS… RIGHT! YOU’RE JUST… WEAK LIKE… THE OTHERS!”
It brings its head down, slamming into Seth’s as he stumbles backward and the soul stealer escapes from the crater in the wall.
“‘Morality’ this, ‘pacifism’ that… YOU BORE ME TO DEATH, YOU KNOW?!”
Before it can rush back at Seth, Kat jumps over him with her knees tucked against her stomach, bringing down the scythe once more. This time, she doesn’t miss, as it slides the edge of its chest and down its leg, blood slowly beginning to pour from the wound.
“What about that, freak? Feeling more excited, now?” she confidently retorts, spinning her scythe and resting it on her shoulders as both of her forearms hang over it.
The soul stealer cautiously brings its hand up to the wound on its chest, feeling the blood against its fingers as it examines what's left on its hand after it brings it away.
“You bitch…!”
Gritting its teeth, it launches forward to grab Kat just before Seth, who was holding his scrambled head for a few moments, hits it with a left backhand to the jaw as it’s sent flying against the back of a grey sedan. Asuga, petrified, had been patiently hiding just in front of the engine bay. Laying against a crushed trunk, the soul stealer clicks its tongue and begins to push itself out of it as it stands up.
“Screw this… Hey, you two!” it yells out, pointing to Seth and Kat with its index finger, level with its abdomen, “I’ll be retreating now. See ya.”
Crouching down, it quickly jumps upward with explosive force, making at least 10 meters of vertical distance between it and them.
“You bastard…! Get back here!” Seth yells, roaring up at the sky.
Slamming her feet against the ground, Kat starts running, and is about to use her scythe to improvise a pole vault before…
…She catches an extremely quick glance of something flying upward to her right. The way it seemed to glint against the light, the shine that reflected off of it, implied it was something metal.
As both she and Seth looked up to the sky, they saw what it belonged to:
Cherry red, silver, and black metallic legs, with heat dissipating into the air just behind thrusters scattered to the back and sides of each one. Covering the sunlight of an overcast afternoon.
Asuga was up in the sky right above the soul stealer, who hadn’t even noticed her, preparing an axe kick as she raised her metal foot above her head. With a deadly serious stare downward, the thrusters that had burned off her pant legs kicked in again with roaring blue and white flames, her leg shooting down against the soul eater’s shoulder like a railgun and sending it crashing back to the ground with a crushing gasp.
She lands on the ground just behind him, raising her front leg up in a kicking-ready stance. Sluggishly getting off the ground, he worryingly whips his head around to look at the three, circling around him. Their synergy was a little too tight for its liking.
“You brats…! Cutting off my escape?!”
Flailing its arms out in a fit of rage, it animalistically makes a break for Seth, who uppercuts it in the gut before it can attack, bringing its feet off of the ground. Seeing an opportunity, Kat takes the initiative and spins her scythe around her body before slamming the snath into its chest, sending it flying backward toward Asuga. For a moment, she’s shocked, but then her eyes narrow as she kicks into a spin, building momentum before finally, the thrusters burn bright. Slamming the shin of her leg into the soul stealer's head, she crushes it as it flies off to her side and brutally crashes through three parked cars.
Barely missing their own, to her relief.
Headless and now limp, it lies slumped over against the left side of a crumpled sedan.
For the first time, they all fought together, played off of their individual abilities, and won.
Letting out a deep sigh, Seth’s shoulders slump down from exhaustion as the panels of fleshy armor retreat behind his back.
“That… Was a lot. I’m tired.”
Asuga walks over, tilting her head toward the two of them in curious embarrassment, unsure about her actions.
“Um… Was I supposed to…?”
Smiling, Kat walks over and lightly smacks her shoulder reassuringly.
“He would’ve gotten away if you didn’t. Oh and, by the way…” she nonchalantly points at the burning edges of Asuga’s dress pants, which were more like dress shorts now, “...Those are still on fire.”
Letting out a small yelp, Asuga quickly pats at them to stop the fire from spreading any further. Still exhausted, Seth can’t help but feel humored by the sight of her desperately trying to pat her pants down. Turning back to the apartment, Kat puts her hands on her hips, looking up at the damaged room they were just in.
“Outside of that… Asuga, did you notice anything?” she says, closing her eyes to take a deep breath.
“Mhm, I chatted with a few renters here… they said they saw an androgynous person with a lot of covered-up scars, wearing a mask at night sometimes. Apparently… they never talked, only using a phone to type what they wanted to say,” she pauses as she takes a deep breath, “They always said one of their friends passed out drunk and they’d bring them back to their apartment on the third floor to watch over them,” Asuga explains, still patting out the fire even though it had already dissipated.
“Our killer probably used some kind of chemical to make the victims unconscious… but the autopsy never found any traces of residue,” Seth replies.
Crossing her arms, Kat tilts her head in thought.
“Hm… then maybe it’s—”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Before Seth can react to what was said, the tone of the voice itself causes him to revert to only his base-level instincts. There wasn’t even enough time for them to relay information to him, as his body did as it pleased, stepping behind Kat, who had her back faced to the monster. They were foolish. Naive, even. Distracted by the case at hand, he forgot to check and make sure the monster was dead in the first place.
As Seth coughs out a spray of blood forward, Kat slowly turns her torso toward him, as he watches her eyes open in shock as if the world was in slow motion.
He felt warm. But not a comforting type of warm, a suffocating one.
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Why? Why did he feel so warm?
Then, after a moment, a chill washed over him from below.
What could possibly make him feel so cold?
As he looked down at his stomach, he saw it:
A burned, torn-up hand, sticking directly out of his gut.
He glances back up toward Kat as he sees her mouth open into a yell, with her body moving toward him, and all he can do is smile in response. Even despite the blood dripping from his mouth and down his neck.
It felt warm.
As his neck gave and his head slumped over…
…That warmth disappeared.
. . . . .
The black void was familiar to him by now. Alongside that, the one who dwells in it:
Yggdrasil.
“You were lucky. If you had synchronized with me even a moment later, you would have reset.”
Its hideous, lanky form slumps its shoulders, almost as if it’s copying the way Seth usually does it.
“I am curious. Do you wish to gamble, and risk losing all of the progress you’ve made up to this point? Throwing your own life away for another…”
It chuckles to itself.
“Well, it isn’t as if I can complain. That foolishness is what convinced me in the first place. Now then…”
Seth steps forward into the void as the black begins to flood over his feet.
“No!” he yells out, reaching forward and stumbling, “Don’t hurt them!”
Yggdrasil scoffs, tilting its head toward him.
“Give me a little credit. Even I realize that killing those girls would only hinder the advancement of our contract. However…” it trails off as a wide set of teeth form where it had no previous mouth, creating a wide-grinned, evil smile.
The black liquid now covers up to Seth’s chest as he reaches out, gasping in fear as he attempts to crawl away from it.
“...I already made a clear example of what will happen when you break the rules of this game. In doing so again, I must take something away from you.”
As the liquid passes just under Seth’s horrified stare, covering his mouth as he attempts to gasp for air that doesn’t even exist in this space, Yggdrasil crouches down, never letting up the grin.
“A man that so easily throws away his life… is nothing more than a puppet to be used by the living. Remember this, Seth...”
It stands up as the liquid completely envelops Seth, sinking him further down into the depths, locking his body in place as he closes his eyes, the only thing reaching him being Yggdrasil’s final warning.
“...As of this moment: you are dead, and I am alive.”
. . . . .
A sickening chuckle erupts from Seth’s mouth as a clockface-styled halo suddenly manifests overtop his head out of thin air.
“This… corpse… dares to touch me?”
As the soul stealer’s burnt eyelids open in shock, it realizes. The atmosphere around Seth had changed. It was stuffy, threatening. Someone, or something, was dwelling inside of his body.
Of course it would know.
It was the same type of abomination.
But as the fleshy armor panels begin to clash against each other, creating the silhouette it had just fought with earlier, it attempts to pull its arm out of Seth’s gut. But it doesn't budge. Not at all.
No, that isn’t the case.
The thing in his body was holding it there with a wide grin on his face.
“A rotting mistake like you…”
The armor panels struggled against the arm, slowly crushing it to avoid further resistance. It yells in response, feeling excruciating pain as the panels finally cut through his entire forearm, and the stump sprays them down with blood. As the upper jaw of the monster clashed against the lower set of teeth, twisted, spiraling horns manifested themselves from the top, right below the halo.
The existence of something like this should be entirely contradictory.
Nothing logical in this world would allow this thing in front of it to exist.
Yet, it did. That was an irrefutable fact.
There it stood. Tall, towering over it.
A demonic angel in the flesh.
“...Falls apart far too easily.”
Though the soul stealer no longer had a head, it didn’t matter. It was a spirit, first and foremost, and as such, it has the ability to see without a physical counterpart to do so with.
But in these moments, it wished it couldn’t.
The claws of the beast had attached themselves to its chest, barreling backward and away from where Kat and Asuga stood, frozen in terror. As it speeds past them, it brings the soul stealer’s body downward, scraping it against the collection of destroyed cars and spreading its blood across all of them.
“Far too easily. And you call yourself a spirit…?”
It stops the rush, standing tall over one of the cars as it bashes the soul stealer’s body against it relentlessly, crushing the entire vehicle flat against the ground.
“WHAT AN INSULT! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED! EXISTING ON THE SAME PLANE AS I DO…?!”
Over, and over, and over again as blood paints the parking lot in a harsh red.
“NOT EVEN THAT DRIED-UP CODGER WOULD HAVE LAUGHED AT SUCH A POOR JOKE!”
After the first car is reduced to nothing but metal rubble, it turns around to the next and begins again.
“WHY DOES AN EXISTENCE SUCH AS YOURS TRY SO HARD TO LIVE? YOU ARE IN NOTHING BUT CONSTANT PAIN, A CYCLE OF NEVER-ENDING SUFFERING, NOT EVEN GRANTED YOUR OWN IDENTITY TO FIND COMFORT WITHIN! A LEECH, BUT EVEN LEECHES ARE BORN WITH PURPOSE!”
Yggdrasil takes the body in both its hands, continuously slamming it against the remains of the car as blood keeps flooding across the ground.
“YOU EXIST AT THE BOTTOM OF OUR FOOD CHAIN FOR A REASON! I REFUSE TO GRANT YOU A SHRED OF MERCY, AN OUNCE OF SYMPATHY!”
It holds up the body in one hand, heavy cuts and gashes all over due to the constant stabbing of broken metal against it. It’s limp, unable to move or resist any attack Yggdrasil may throw at it.
“...That’s all you’re worth? How revolting…”
Its eight eyes glance over to the two girls, standing in horror a few meters away as they watch helplessly. Noticing them, it narrows its eyes in sadistic happiness, clenching its teeth together in a wide grin before opening its mouth.
“Carve this into your minds. This is how a real spirit fights.”
In an instant, it chomps down onto the neck and chest of the soul stealer, biting through and swallowing the corpse. Asuga falls onto her knees, her body unable to react from the amount of fear going through her mind at the moment, but Kat doesn’t even notice it as she stares directly ahead with a parted mouth.
Not only was she staring at the thing that had pretty much killed her once before, but she was watching it cannibalize one of its own. Bite by bite, until the entire body was gone. After it finished, it stood up straight, opening its mouth to hang its tongue out.
She’d never forget the sight.
Its teeth were stained in crimson.
As the tongue whipped itself across the air, it sprayed off a trail of red as well.
The thing standing in front of them…
…Was nothing but a monster.
Then, it looked at her.
And it smiled.
“The show was messier than I thought it would be.”
As if amused by what it said to her, it manically laughed at itself, turning into a cackle shortly after.
There was only one thought in her head.
If there could be a physical manifestation of insanity?
This thing would be it. Completely.
She couldn’t find the strength to overcome the fear drowning out her soul.
As such, she couldn’t say anything in response.
Both of them were completely powerless to do anything.
Yggdrasil, seemingly satisfied, chuckles and looks down at the ground.
“Well, that was my fun. Goodbye, for now.”
The halo disappears just as easily as it had come, the horns recessing into the head and shifting color as if they never existed in the first place. All of it shifting backward, revealing Seth with his eyes closed, just behind the lower jaw.
She wanted to ask if he was okay. Or rather, to check on him in any capacity.
But her body screamed ‘No’.
Endlessly. But as she slowly built up the courage to move forward, when she had made around a meter of distance forward to him as the panels were almost completely gone, she noticed something that wasn’t there before.
Subtly parting Seth’s hair, they didn’t look out of place initially.
But she saw them for what they were.
Small horns, barely poking past his bangs near the inner side of both his temples.
Aqua-green horns, not even bearing sharp tips.
Regardless, that was enough.
She knew that this man was no longer human.
As he began to blink open his eyes, now on his knees near the floor, he looked around at the blood on the destroyed cars. On the asphalt he sat on. Then, he took a finger to his mouth, and, as if he was horrified by the thought, pressed it against his tongue. Scraping against it with the fingertip.
Making sure nothing was there.
Wasting no time, Kat pulls a pair of handcuffs she had clasped around her back belt loop out into her hands, walking behind Seth as he stumbles, crawling away from her.
“Wait, I can…!”
She shakes her head, staring down at him as if he were the monster that had possessed his body.
“No… no! I’m… I’m putting these cuffs on,” she apprehensively states, staring down at him, “Or… I’ll kill you. Right here.”
Seth’s eyes open wide and his mouth parts, but he shuts it quickly after.
There was nothing he could do, let alone say, to make this any better.
This was a result of his carelessness, and he had to deal with the consequences.
Defeated, he raises his arms up as his hands go limp, with Kat bringing them behind his back as she cuffs his wrists together. Looking forward, he spots Asuga, staring at him like she never knew him.
“You’re not… you’re not human,” Kat says, locking the cuffs in place.
“No, I am human! I…” he trails off, unable to defend himself.
“You’re not… no, you’re not!” she exclaims while holding her hand on his shoulder, pulling out her flip phone and taking a picture of his face with the other, “If you are… what are these?”
Putting the phone up for him to view the picture, he stares down at it lifelessly, for only a moment. As he begins to realize that it couldn’t be fake, that the reality is what lies in front of him on that phone, his eyes feel as if they’re going to bulge out of his sockets.
“I… No, that’s… That’s not…” he trails off, muttering to himself, “I’m… I’m human… I swear…”
Grabbing the collar of his shirt and saying nothing to him in return, she starts walking back to their sedan.
“...Come on, Asuga… we’re going back.”
Asuga, staying deathly silent, which was entirely unlike her… just made Seth realize the weight of the situation even further.
I… I’m human, right? I’m still…
I couldn’t say.
No, you’re lying. This is just part of your point, you’re trying to prove something!
I have already proved my point. Or were you not paying attention?
…What?
The inside of Seth’s mind goes coldly quiet for a moment before Yggdrasil responds.
I said that I would take something from you. And I did.
My…?
Yes.
Another sliver of your humanity.
As Kat opens the door to the back passenger side of the car, Seth hangs his head in defeat.
No one said a word during the ride back to headquarters.