Chapter 13 - The End Near

One Hour to Sunrise

“Ka-hahaha!” Yurei laughed manically as he held his two long scythes before him, twirling as he laughed at Kazama and Yuko. The two women just looked at him with dead stern eyes that went, “Really?” Kazama held her dual katana;s out before her, ready to engage the laughing man behind the mask.

“So….” Kazama began as she stared down Yurei, “How do you plan on fighting him? We have the upper hand with the two of us and al-”

“Heh,” Yurei laughed as he interrupted Kazama’s speech to Yuko.

“You may have defeated my simple copies with relative ease, but this time it will be a teensy bit different. Let's see if you can survive my exact body doubles, ka-hahaha!”

With a swing of his arms, two copies of Yurei ran to flank both Kazama and Yuko, causing the two to press their backs to each other.

“Well,” Yuko began with a hint of a smirk, “It seems once a coward, always a coward huh?”

“You could say that, huh?” Kazama grinned as she agreed with the other woman. She cracked her neck as she stared down a manically laughing Yurei. With a crack of her knuckles, she laughed back at Yurei.

“Really? You really can’t just go all out with us? Your coward level keeps going above the bar you set!”

Yurei responded by swinging both of his scythes like pendulum on a clock and spoke the intensity of a child.

“Oh don’t worry, I would never dream of missing our final fight! I need to truly test your mettle, and I think this will be a good experience for the both of us!”

Yurei and his exact duplicates began to swirl around Kazama and Yuko, causing the two women to get slightly dizzy and lose sight of the original. Just as soon as it had begun, the three came to a stop around them and all three spoke with a laugh.

“Ka-hahaha! Now my dear women, which of us it the fake, and which of us is the real deal?”

The three Yureis began to lightly circle the two women with hoots and hollers, clearly enjoying the game they were playing. Yuko smiled with a nervous twitch as she watched the act and spoke yo Kazama.

“He really loves to make things more complicated huh?”

Kazama nodded her head in response and aimed a katana at one of the circling Yurei’s.

“The only thing we can do is choose one and hope it's the real coward. “

She swung her twin katana’s towards the Yurei, who in turn blocked her attack with his twin scythes. With one elegant grace, he spun his scythes in unison, catching Kazama’s blades and throwing her into a wall. Yuko cringed when she saw her companion in the fight fly into the far wall, but took her eyes back to the Yurei before her. She engaged it with battle, leaving one Yurei to stand behind and watch the two battle.

Kazama stood up from the rubble of the wall and braced herself with one katana. The Yurei tilted its head at her and spoke.

“Oh you poor little thing, did that hurt you? I can help you feel better with this!”

He thrust a scythe at Kazama and almost caught her square in the stomach. Kazama dodged the thrust and leapt onto the long pole of the scythes, swinging ehr blades back and forth as she attacked him. With a grunt of pain, the Yurei swung the scythe with all its might, throwing Kazama off of the pole. Then, it ran back and was replaced by the Yurei that was standing alone. The new Yurei spoke to Kazama in a jovial voice.

“Awww, now you forced me to change places.”

“What the hell are you griping about? You're the one who could've stayed with the same damn version!” Kazama said, as she noticed the one Yuko was fighting switch places just like hers. The one in front of her responded to her question in a creepily friendly way, as if he was happy to help out.

“But this way I am able to fight with every little teensy bit I have. I am not only fighting you, but also her and the one below!”

“You're saying you're extending yourself into every projection you create?”

The Yurei cocked it’s head like the previous one and continued on with pleasure.

“AT the very basic level, yes. To you or any PC untouched by the blessed code, it would seem impossible, no, inconceivable. But I have been touched by that mighty code and I shall use it on all of you!”

Kazama squinted her eyes as she attacked him again, talking to him as she did so.

“Code?” What the hell are you monologuing on about now?”

“Heh, the code is such a simple thing, but for an untouched PC, it is impossible to comprehend. But all that we took in this building now know of that holy code, they even have seen what I have seen! A place where we can all rule together under the holy twelve! Those pitiful hackers think they can control this game with a few keystrokes on their player menus, but they are soon in store for a rude awakening. Don't you want to join us?”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Kazama looked at him with questioning eyes, for as far as she could tell, he was just an insane raving lunatic with ties to a cult. When it came right down to it, no one should be in control of the game, not hackers or raving lunatics like Yurei, especially when all they had was ill gotten powers. Kazama shook her head as she spoke to him again.

“No, what you and your “Twelve” are doing is wrong. No one should be in control of this game or have the powers you got. And if there really are more of the likes of you in this game,” She flicked a bit of her hair over her shoulder as she spoke, “The I will have no choice but to stop you at every instant, making sure your put down from hurting people. You guys make the hackers look meaningless, at least they don't over power themselves with this so called code.”

The Yurei began to twirl the scythes in its hands with a loud sigh, upset that he couldn't get Kazama to join his side.

“Very well then, it seems I will have to force you to our side instead. The code would do wonders, even more so for a player with skills like yours…”

“Sorry, I just don’t like playing for the wrong team.”

“Then shall we see who will be victorious in this battle?”

Kazama rushed towards him and the two began to battle once again, but with more fury than before.

xXx

Bottom Level

Sheshiro rushed the reaper with a new found energy pulsing through him. As the reaper swung its scythe low, he jumped onto the top of it with all his might. The voice shouted aloud to him.

“The reaper has weak spots, and every single one of them is inside of that cowl it wears. I assume your rare twin blades should be able to pinpoint them perfectly.”

“Y-yeah, as long as I can get my attack off, they pretty much always hit their mark.”

“You won’t get a second chance, so make sure they do!”

He had finally come to a stop where he stood, staring down at the cowl of the reaper. It looked at him with its beady yellow eyes and spoke once again, in a bid to stop him from attacking.

“Do you really think you can stop me? How laughable! Why don’t you just give up and join us? We could always use more for our purpose. And you would be granted the powers of the code.”

“Ya know, that's the second time i’ve heard about this code thing. And now hearing it from you makes me cringe, so no thank you Mr. Reaper! I prefer growing stronger on my own and with my friends!”

“I don’t know who else has told you about the code, but it seems the choice has been made. And so it must end here, with your death.”

The reaper's eyes began to glow brighter as Sheshiro stared down at them, almost in a hypnotic stance. The voice of the girl urged him to move, and he began to lift his arms, pointing his blades deep within the cowl.

“I will guide your hand, so be calm Sheshiro.” She spoke his name with a soft and angelic tone, and the softness of her voice made him blush a slight bit. He did as she said, and as soon as he was calmer, he felt hands around his. The girl's voice shouted loudly and Sheshiro reacted in perfect timing.

“Now!”

His blade extended into multiple offshoots, which in turn repeated the process until  hundreds of of small points plunged deep into the cowl. As he plunged his blades, the reaper blazed its eyes at Shehsiro, causing the entire room to loudly explode into a shock wave.

xXx

Kazama pinned the Yurei she fought into a corner and mercilessly attacked him. The Yurei that was standing alone decided to help its counterpart out and swung at Kazama’s unprotected back, forcing her to duck low to the ground. The Yurei ended up atatcking it’s own double, instantly destroying the copy. The Yuko batted her Yurei away from her and met up with Kazama, huffing and puffing as she did.

“Y-you got one down!”

“He got himself to be fair Yuko, I just ducked….” Kazama laughed nervously as they moved their heads back and forth between the two remaining Yurei’s.

“Now who is the real and who is the fake?” Yuko asked, her longsword held closely to her face, almost touching the tip of her nose. Kazama held her twin Katana’s low and mumbled to herself, unsure of what was what anymore.

“As far as I know, they both could be real and it wouldn't make a difference.”

The we should just go all out and see which one cries first.”

“I like the sound of that!”

The Yurei that had killed its counterpart pointed a scythe towards Yuko and spoke.

“I am most disappointed in you Yuko, I had so much faith in you for our cause.”

“I just don’t like being manipulated by another person, it's really simple. Haven’t you ever learned that no one likes to be a slave to another PC?”

“Ah, but it is not slavery, it is just pure enlightenment.”

“Well I don’t want to be “enlightened” by the likes of someone like you. No offense, but no one can trust a person who never even shoes himself.”

Yurei did not reply again and instead the two Yurei;s began to emanate the blue lightning from their scythes. With the lightning striking between their scythes, they began to twirl them so that the stored lightning began to rain down on the two women. Yuko blocked one hit with her longsword as Kazama rushed the Yurei that had spoken, narrowly avoiding the blades of its scythes. Now within range of him, she began to raise her blades towards his chest. He responded as quickly as possible and attempted to guard his chest with a lightning bolt. Kazama saw through the defense and struck through the lightning with her left hand, her blade sinking through it and meeting its target on the other side. For the first time, Yurei yelled in pain. And just as she dealt the damage to his chest, a loud explosion caught her attention. Realizing it came from below, she shouted aloud.

“Sheshiro!”

Yurei suddenly broke her attention away from the lower level with a loud pained yell, one that was not aimed at anyone.

“No! How...how could he…..how?! Ahhh! The pain…..it sears my mind…..Ahhh!”

He dropped his twin scythes and grabbed his head with both hands, gripping it as he raged in pain. Yuko had ran up alongside Kazama and watched as he moaned and groaned.

“The other...disappeared….”

“Yeah, I figured it would now….”

Yurei was on his knees and slowly took his hands off of his head and looked up at the two women, their eyes staring at him in anger. With a pained voice, he spoke to them.

“I don’t know how he….did it….he defeated….my reaper...no….my extension. He should have died from his fear! How?! How could he overcome me?!”

Kazama pointed a katana at him in anger and spoke in a low voice.

“You defeated yourself the minute you attack us. Your own ego drove you to this, and I will end it for you now!”

She was just about to bring her blade down and kill him when a loud boom broke through the wall behind him. Kazama jerked her hand back and looked as a hole in the wall appeared with the sun of dawn shining in. As the dust cloud settled, a figure stood within what looked like a rip in the air. The man in the portal simply smiled with a wink as Kazama and Yuko stared wide eyed.

“Oi Yurei, your losing to a bunch of girls.”

End Chapter 13