Chapter 11 - Unshackled

The girl in the knight's suit, Yuko Shizu, watched through her bodies lifeless eyes as kazama brought their blades closer together. Yuko herself wasn't aware of what was happening, but her body was reacting with brutal force without her say so. The real Yuko was watching as she swam in her lifeless enslaved mind, being fully manipulated by an outside force. Kazama was shouting words to Yuko, but they came in as a garbled mess. The lightning all around them was growing more and more forceful and brighter.

“Hey…..yo…..bre…!”

“What?” Yuko thought to herself, the words cutting off in her mind as they reached her ears. “What is she trying to do?....no...what am I doing? Why am I fighting?!” Yuko tried to gain control of her body with all of her might, but it was impossible. She was but a puppet on a string, reacting to the will of her master. Kazama was beginning to cough up large amounts of blood as the lightning struck every inch of her body, but she grimly held onto her blades. Yuko went wide eyed as she watched what her hands were doing, slowly killing another PC like herself.

“Wait…..no! This is not me! I’m not killing her! Let me go. Let me go!” She shouted loudly in her mind, as she watched what she was doing, “Let me go! Let me go! LET ME GO!”

Yuko was shouting at the top of her lungs within her own mind, in a fight with her own consciousness in order to gain control of herself. She yelled and screamed until she finally stopped suddenly, feeling the cool metal of a gauntlet around her hand. She blinked her eyes rapidly as she became aware of her own body again. Kazama was falling to the ground, her HP bar falling well below forty. Yuko stared, then turned her attention to the lightning that was sparking around her and within her blade. With a hefty lift, she brought her blade up and channeled all the lightning around it. Then with a quick turn around, she yelled as she aimed the blade towards a new target.

“Yaaaaah!”

xXx

Kazama watched as the girl, Yuko, yelled aloud with her sword pointing in a new direction. In one loud burst, the channeled lightning shot from her longsword and destroyed the second level of the magic divisional building. The lightning streamed towards the second level for one second, and then was gone in the next second, leaving an eerie silence in the room as the rubble crumbled to the floor. Yuko’s armor had been fully destroyed from the blast of lightning and she sunk her blade into the ground with a sigh. Sheshiro was the first to speak, having run over to Kazama to hand her a healing pot.

“Did she...kill him?” He asked with a hushed tone

Kazama took the healing pot and restored her HP bar to the max. With a frown, she answered him.

“No…….”

Just as she was beginning to stand up, the room began to shift underneath and all around them. The voice from the figure that had been previously on the second level laughed manically at them.

“Ka-hahahaha! You really dare to defy me, you own and only master?! I hope you are prepared to reap the consequences of your decision Yuko!”

Yuko crouched low with her hand resting on the hilt of the Long sword as the room expanded and became circular. Kazama and Sehshiro watched in wonder as the multiple levels of the room disappeared and new stairways formed along the way, reaching to the very top of the room. And at the very top floated the figure of a man wearing all black, with not an inch of skin being shown. Even his head was fully covered, with only a sickly crows mask for a face and yellow eyes glowing from underneath it. The man clenched both of his gloved hands and shouted loudly with glee.

“I, Yurei the Trickster, will show you what happens when you defy me!  You will learn from your mistakes! Ka-hahahaha!”

And with that, he opened his hands and began to rain his blue lightning down upon Kazama and her companions. Kazama frowned angrily as the floating man above them laughed in pleasure as he rained his lightning. “What the hell is he?”

Yuko lifted her long sword up and readied herself, speaking to Kazama as she did so.

“He's a head member of their group…...and he’s one of the nastiest guys they have. He simply rules by fear and trickery…”

As she was telling them about him, the lightning began to strike the ground. As they did, they began to change form until multiple copies of Yurei stood around them, mocking them with laughter. Sheshiro whistled when a legion of Yurei’s had begun to surround them.

“Pweet! So he can make copies of himself from simple lightning? How fun! I love being able to fight more!”

Kazama and Yuko put their backs to him as the former spoke aloud. “So he’s just a nasty coward huh? Doesn't he want to do this the easy way and just fight us like a man?!”

Yuko smiled as she looked over at Kazama. “I thank you for helping me become free from his mind-control….but I hope you realize that hes mine!”

Kazama sprinted and leapt into the sea of Yurei’s with a grin. “Do whatever you wish with him, but I can’t apologize if I get to him with you!”

The original Yurei floated down to the very top of the stairs and shouted aloud to the three below as they fought.

“I just want to make sure you all have as much fun as your little bitty hearts can handle, but don’t make me wait up here too long. I bore very easily you see.”

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Kazama shouted at Sheshiro ,who stood behind her and was looking defenseless.

“Sheshiro! Do you think you can take care of that side of the room? I’m going up to get ‘em!”

Sheshiro smirked as he watched multiples copies coming at him with a vengeance. As soon as they came within range, he put his arms out in front of him, pointed towards the oncoming mob. As he did so, his twin blades stretched and formed multiple pointed offshoots. As soon as they had formed, they flew towards the sea of Yurei’s, instantly killing over a dozen of them in one hit. Sheshiro looked over his shoulder and thumbs upped Kazama with a grin.

“This is childs play Kazama, so go on ahead without me!” Then with a leap, he plunged into the sea of copies. Kazama turned to Yuko and spoke with seriousness. “Let's go get him together. With the two of us, I doubt anything will stand in our way for too long.”

Yuko smiled and held her fist out to kazama. “Alright then, together we will kill the bastard who enslaved me!”

Kazama smirked and bumped her fist with Yuko’s. The the two women ran off into the fray, cutting down multiple copies of Yurei with relative ease. The original took notice of their arrival up the stairs with pleasure. “Well, it looks like the two steadfast women will be joining me shortly., how quaint. It looks like my copies will not be enough to fully stop them, heh.

With a flick of a gloved finger, Yurei did something to make the stairs of the other levels begin to move and float into the air. Sheshiro caught sight of the floating stairs as they ripped from the walls and spoke in wonderment

“Damn, he’s really pulling all the stops now. This guys running this like a classic boss fight!”

Kazama pushed a copy next to her off of the stairs and yelled at Sheshiro as she did so. “Just keep your attention focused on the battle at hand! We don’t need your colorful commentary!”  

Sheshiro cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted back, “Whatever you say boss! I just thought I would lighten the tension in the room!”

“Well it's not helping right now! And why do you keep calling me boss?”

“Oh, Shohei let me join your guild, so now you're my boss, seeing as you're the leader and all.”

Kazama began angrily  shoving off copies as she raged over what Shohei had done.

“Ahhh, that bastard! What does he think he's doing behind my back! I oughta rail my sword in his gut the next time I see him!”

While she was raging, Yuko leapt over to the edge and made it onto another floating section of staircase. As she landed, a set of copies went to attack her, but she quickly managed to shove them off to the sided.

Sheshiro shouted loudly to thank the two women. “Hey guys, thanks for all the extra copies you keep shoving off the side! It gives me more free time to have fun with. Whooo!”

Yuko nodded her head towards him, then spoke over to kazama. “C’mon and jump over here! This will lead us to the next level of stairs!”

Kazama nodded and got herself ready and leapt over the cliff. She barely made it to the edge, and Yuko had to grab her hand at the last second. “Thanks.”

Kazama steadied herself on the floating staircase and Yuko placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled. “No need to thank me. I owe you big time...um…..”

“My names Kazama.”

“Ah! Its nice to fully meet you then Kazama. And I am Yuko as you may have guessed by now. Eh, let's get back to it!”

“Right!”

They stood on the floating staircase as it began to move closer to another section. As soon as they jumped onto it, a bolt of lightning struck between them, cracking the piece in half. Yurei laughed loudly as Kazama and Yuko began to float away from each other.

“I seem to have underestimated your tenacity. I originally thought one of you would have died by now, but of course I am wrong. But now we will see if you can make it to me in time!” He pointed downward at the stairway and shouted more. “It would be dull if I allowed things to move the same, and so I shall change that as well! I wish to fight you both, so hurry up and get to me! Ka-hahaha!”

Kazama angrily barred her teeth as him and yelled loudly. “Oh just stop orgasming over your tricks already! Like I told you before, I’m gonna slice that mouth of yours in two!”

Kazama, with all of the intent of getting to him, leapt to another floating piece of stairway. Yuko looked over at her and decided to do the same. As she did, she shouted over to her. “We will meet each other at the top, and together we will end this!”

“Copy that!”

xXx

Bottom Floor of the Magic Divisional Building

As Kazama and Yuko were leaping from stairway to stairway, hell bent on kicking the masked man's ass, Sheshiro was stuck with cleanup duty.

“Uggh!” He thought to himself as he cut legions of Yurei’s down. “This is going to take quite some time I think.” He bent low as one of the copies attempted to shock him with lightning, which he in turn struck down with a sword to the face.

“These copies are fun and annoying at the same time, but if only I could just attack them all at once…….” He shouted aloud. Yurei laughed  from his lofty perch, fully hearing Sheshiro.

“I will fulfil that wish of yours if you like!”

Sheshiro wasent getting a word of what he was saying and replied in confusion, “Whaaat? What does that even mean?”

Instead of answering, Yurei lifted a hand towards his copies and began to flex his fingers. The copies around Sheshiro began to swirl around him, slowly forming into something else. Sheshiro could do nothing but stand and watch as a new figure appeared before his eyes. Within moments, a new hulking form shrouded in a giant ragged black cloak stood before him. A tag appeared above the new entity, identifying it for Sheshiro.

>> Class Type: Soul Reaper HP: 5000

Weapons: Reaper Scythe

Yurei shouted in joy as the giant soul reaper stood over Sheshiro.

“Isn't it beautiful?! It's such a lovely creation don’t you think? I hope I made your wish come true, I do so hope you play with it to your heart's content!”

Sheshiro raised his head as he looked into the depths of the soul reapers cowl in horror.

“Ummmm...yeah, thanks I guess…”

He was slightly shaking as the giant soul reaper began to move towards him.

“I guess this is the mini boss segment of the fight….”

xXx

Kazama and Yuko were getting closer when they noticed a new form on the bottom level.

“What the hell is that thing?! Shouted Kazama as she watched Sheshiro engage into combat with it.

“That,” began Yuko as she leapt to another stairway, “Is called a soul reaper. It’s one of the strongest horror type creature of Shara, and its only thought is to reap its opponents souls. It’s not something you would find right now though…..

Kazama looked at her in intrigue at her knowledge of the creature. “How do you know that?”

“Experience I guess. But hopefully he can take it down fast….it can get pretty scary…”

Kazama looked down as Sheshiro dodged some of the reapers long range attacks.

“The soul reaper is one pf the few NPC creatures that can enslave a PC to its will…”

Kazama looked back at her in shock. “Wait, you mean…”

Yuko nodded her head in grimace.

“Yes...that soul reaper is an extension of him. He lives for fear and fun..its because of him that I was trapped within my own mind….”

Kazama looked at her with seriousness in her eyes.

“He's right there above us. Let's go teach him a lesson or two now.”

“Right.”

With that, they leapt up and landed on a landing that extended well beyond them. Standing with his back to them on the far side, Yurei spoke aloud.

“Ah, so you both got up here eh? Well, I guess it's time to play some more huh? Then,” He began to turn around, his crows mask intimidating kazama and Yuko. “Shall we reap your souls for our noble purpose?”

He had fully turned around and held two long scythes that extended twice his body length. Kazama and Yuko readied themselves as he laughed loudly in pleasure.

End chapter 11