"You know, this is the first time I've had so much fun on a night like this!" The slit-mouth woman known as Akane exclaims in an exhilarated tone as she swings the stainless steel garden shears at her opponent. "Surrounded by murder and death, it's the best I can imagine!"
"I've had my fair share of murder and death nights, so I'm not having much fun." Senka responds in kind with her own, albeit rusted version of the weapon. It is from an age where the knowledge of smelting techniques to create stainless metal alloys did not exist yet. However, even as it appears brittle, the edges instead chip away at the modern weapon that Akane is wielding.
Their battle takes them up and down the stairs, as the blades clash and generate sparks that illuminate the darkness. Ghostly lights dance around them, accompanying their death waltz with a spectral rhythm. While Akane is clearly enjoying herself, laughing maniacally at times and chuckling innocently at others, Senka's expression is a mask of neutrality, not a hint of any emotions regarding fighting her classmate in a battle to the death.
"You're incredible, Senka!" The former glasses girl remarks with an almost ecstatic expression as she takes some distance after a heavy attack. "But all good things have to come to an end." Her mouth opens ever so slightly, cracking a sinister toothless grin across her face. From inside her back a glowing female apparition emerges with a tormented expression, separating from her and rushing forward at Senka, holding a kitchen knife with both hands to stab her.
"Thank you for the meal." The stitched girl opens her mouth wide and simply sucks in the tormented spirit as if it was a bubble of air underwater. Staring at her with wide eyes while blinking a few times in bewilderment, Akane's grin disappears as her lips settle onto a straight line, the jagged scars on her face closing up to turn practically invisible. She did not expect that to happen and is completely perplexed for a moment.
"Wait, give her back!" Finally regaining her presence of mind, a hint of desperation becomes visible in Akane's eyes as she points at Senka.
"No. You gave her to me so I took her." She responds with an exaggerated defiant look.
"That's not what I was doing, dammit! She's really precious to me, it took me great pains to get her!" Akane's previous playfulness and nonchalance has completely disappeared, and she seems close to tears.
"... too bad." Realizing that the ghost she just consumed was really important to her opponent, Senka states with a shrug and a mischievous grin with the sole intention of aggravating Akane. That appears to be very effective, as the latter's expression immediately turns into one of rage. She charges forward with the garden shears spread wide, her intention to decapitate the stitched girl in a single move.
Slamming her own weapon between the blades, Senka stops the attack dead in its tracks. The second round begins.
"Hey, Senka, where are you?" Lethia speaks into her wristwatch, but receives no response. To do so, the person on the other end would need to press a button, so either the doll-like girl is in a situation where it is inconvenient to respond, or she is incapacitated and unable to move. Whichever the case, without her, the red-haired girl is unable to break through this illusion on her own. "Well, the fact that no new specters have appeared means that the one controlling them must be busy."
"Can you please free me now?" The ghost still bound onto the wooden horse asks sheepishly, fidgeting and squirming, trying to make the edge grinding into her crotch more comfortable, but judging by her expression, failing to do so. Turning around to her, Lethia's glance seems to imply that she does not feel like doing so.
"You didn't tell me anything of worth, so I don't wanna." Speaking in a childish tone, she pouts exaggeratedly and looks away again.
"I'm sorry! Please, it hurts! Any more of this and I'll..." Pleading in a whining tone, the glowing girl quivers.
"You'll what?" With a sideways glance, Lethia asks teasingly.
"I'll lose my virginity!" She cries in response and tears roll down her face.
"Even though you're a ghost? A thing like virginity doesn't matter anymore, when you get to that point, no?" Waving her serious concerns off, the red-haired girl turns away disinterestedly. She searches her memories for spells that may be useful for breaking through illusions, scratching her chin, tilting her head and walking in circles. While she is stuck here, Senka may be fighting for her life. Then again, she did say that she is immortal, so there may be no real reason to be worried about her wellbeing.
"Nooo!" The ghost cries, but knows not to struggle pointlessly, so as to not make things worse for her private parts. Lethia plugs her mouth with a ball gag she found in one of the drawers with an annoyed expression.
"You're being too loud, I can't concentrate!" With a thick Russian accent, she chastises her and turns away again, sinking back into thought.
Aki watches in both fear and confusion, as Lethia's mood seems to be unstable, seeing how she continues to talk to herself. All she wants is to go home and roll herself up in a blanket on her bed, to cry herself to sleep. However, she is also afraid that in her sleep, this crazy Russian spy is going to come into her room and silence her for finding out about her identity. But since the hallway has become infinite - something she still cannot comprehend, much less attempt to explain rationally - there is nowhere for her to escape to, where Lethia could not catch her. After all, this transfer student is much better at sports than she is.
"Ah!" Finally, the red-haired girl appears to come to a realization and a figurative light bulb seems to flare up above her head. "I haven't used this combination since my battle with Lord Madereik seven millennia ago... I wonder how he's doing. He's one of the only people who can consistently satisfy me whenever we meet." With a thoughtfully raised eyebrow, Lethia muses while holstering the quasar gun. "Mental Fortitude."
"Huh?" Aki notices the light blue aura that surrounds the red-haired girl at these foreign-sounding words. The aura gathers around her head and gains in intensity, before disappearing into her.
"Matter over Mind." Another aura, this time an orange one, places itself over her body and seeps into her. "Mind's Eye." With this one, a large spectral eye opens in midair in front of Lethia and blinks, before shrinking and disappearing into her forehead. She opens her own eyes and turns around to look at Aki, before a smile plays over her lips. "You saw that, I assume."
Nodding slowly, the unfortunately-endowed girl can only stare at her opposite wide-eyed, unable to comprehend what she just witnessed. Most of her mind just wishes that this is a lucid dream and she will wake up in the morning to find out that nothing of it was real.
"Alright, let's see if it worked." With this, the red-haired girl readies her gun and walks through the hole in the wall, out onto the hallway.
"Mmmhmmm!!!" The ghost girl on the wooden horse makes, realizing that she is really being abandoned in her helpless tied up state. Aki, unable to hear it, quickly follows Lethia and leaves the storage room behind.
"Give them back!!!" Rotating her body while wielding a large wood cleaver - a new weapon taken from another apparition - Akane gouges pieces out of the surrounding building. More and more rage fills her heart as Senka has, by now, devoured more than three spirits she sent out to kill her with. Compounding onto that is the fact that she simply cannot seem to land a single strike on the stitched girl. "Raah! Why won't you die?!"
"You gotta ask that one." Senka points behind herself, into empty space, and blocks another attack casually. Unlike Akane, she has no other weapon at her disposal, but it is clear that she does not need it; she is far superior in armed combat, and the only reason she has not yet defeated her classmate is because of her healing factor.
"Who are you talking about!" Taking some distance, Akane throws the cleaver at her small opponent and another spirit hands her a katana.
"Be careful not to slice off your own ear with that. It can happen to amateurs, you know?" Her fake concern is spoken with a mocking expression, as she dodges the cleaver flying at her with minimal movements. This only serves to further anger her opponent, who charges forward with reckless abandon, forgetting the fact that whenever she did so in their last few clashes, she would receive a grievous wound in a counterattack.
And this time is no different, as Senka sinks each of the two double-edged blades of her garden shears into Akane's left thigh while avoiding the telegraphed swing effortlessly. Dropping to the floor as her supporting leg is taken out, she receives a stitched knee to her temple that causes an explosion of stars before her eyes and causes her to drop the katana.
"That didn't last long." Pulling out her shears in a swift motion, Akane screams from pain but still narrowly avoids the blades closing on her neck in an attempt to decapitate her. Licking the blood off the blade, Senka comments in an almost bored tone. "Seems like you're losing your skills with every spirit I take from you."
Unable to argue this, the girl comes to a stop after tumbling across the floor, and stares at Senka with a hateful glare. The wound on her thigh is healing at the same rate as before, but the stitched girl has spoken the truth; her skills with various weapons derive from the spirits she has collected. Although almost all of them were amateurs during their lifetime, adding all sorts of experiences together, they should amount to an existence that can stand toe to toe with a martial arts master.
"No way, that's impossible." Senka says while waving Akane's thoughts off.
"Did you just..." Apparently her mind is being read.
"Yes, I did. But returning to your illogical thoughts: How can a bunch of amateurs added together ever amount to one master? Maybe if they all attack at the same time, they could pile up on him and force him to the ground." Musing with a raised eyebrow, the stitched girl leans on her weapon like one would on a cane. "But you're just one person, one body. You don't have the number's advantage."
Speechless at her argumentation, Akane stares with her mouth open, unable to refute the sound logic.
"I've fought beings like you before. You're all the same, relying on your inborn strength because all you have to fight are humans. Maybe you can easily overpower humans that way..." The slit corners of Senka's mouth open in unison with her lips to reveal a sinister grin. "... but I'm not a human."
"What?!"
"I'm a monster, just like you. But unlike you, I learned to fight against humans of old, who were far stronger than monsters of today." Flipping the garden shears up in a fluid motion, the stitched girl grabs their handles and approaches Akane menacingly. "So be a good girl and let yourself be exterminated."
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"Heeey, Senka!" A familiar voice resounds through the hallway and at the sound, the girl in question turns around with a hint of irritation. Running towards her is Olethea in her skintight bodysuit, her breasts bouncing up and down with every step, and as if mocking the small and flat Senka, seemingly moving in slow motion. "Damn you!" She grinds her teeth at the sight of this unfairness and glances up into space angrily.
"Ah. Watch out." The red-haired girl says in realization, but it is already too late.
"I win!" Akane announces in a triumphant tone and stabs a rusty spike into Senka's back. It emerges from her chest, running right through her heart.
"M-murderer!" Aki, who catches up to Olethea, screams at the sight and stops dead in her tracks.
"A-aaagh?" Unexpectedly, the one performing the stabbing is the one to express her pain as she lets go of the weapon and stumbles backwards. A light red flower blossoms on her shirt, spreading out in a circle in the exact same spot as where Senka's wound is located. Staring at her with a dumbfounded face, Akane does not understand what just happened, and appears to have difficulties standing.
"Shot through the heart, and you're to blame~" The stitched girl hums innocently, turning to face her monstrous classmate. "You give love a bad name~" Her eyes are black once again and extend outwards in a skull-like pattern covering the entire upper half of her face. The wound on her chest does not bleed and she sticks a finger into the hole in her school uniform and the bodysuit underneath. "Why are we wearing these bodysuits again?"
"They're meant to allow you to touch spectral forms as well as protect you from various environmental hazards." Olethea states nonchalantly, not in the least surprised about the fact that Senka is not only still alive, but appears to be able to ignore a spike through her heart. "But I guess they don't do much against that one."
"In other words, just some fanservice, huh?" Sighing, Senka looks down on Akane with a cold expression.
"Wh-what did you... do to me...?" She coughs and holds her chest, the wound in it not showing any signs of healing. Before, a small hole like this would have closed up within seconds, but now it continues to bleed profusely. "Why... am I not... healing?"
"Because it's a curse." Saying in a matter of fact tone, the stitched girl lifts her garden shears up to Akane's neck.
"... what... are you...?"
"Like I said, I'm the Avenger Doll."
In the next moment, the blades come together and with a dull thud, Akane's head drops to the wooden floor and rolls across the ground. For a moment, the torso remains upright, before it falls over and convulses in death throes. From within the stump of the neck a burst of spirit fire emerges and a ghostly wind whips through the hallways.
"Ahhh, murderer!" Aki, who witnessed the entire scene unfold, screams once more and scrambles to get away. Olethea makes no move to show that she will stop her, but Senka spins around quickly with a serious expression.
"Protect her! This isn't over yet!" She shouts and cancels the skull pattern covering her face, returning it to its normal color.
"Indeed... this isn't over." The severed head says and floats up into the sky, spirit fire burning from her neck. "I am so much more than just the sum of these parts!" The headless body sits up unnaturally and a cold blue aura begins to emanate from it, illuminating the surroundings in an eerie light.
"Uwah, this is like a multi-stage bossfight..." Olethea comments with a frown before running after Aki, who is stumbling away like a headless chicken.
"You're not getting away!" Akane's voice has changed to a banshee-like whisper on the wind, echoing in different octaves at the same time, its grating sound setting off goose bumps and causing shivers to run down the spines of those who hear it. Of course, Senka is not affected, as she fearlessly gazes at the floating head, whose eyes have come ablaze with blue lightning.
The headless body lifts an arm and in the next moment, a heavy chain rips through the wall of the corridor and whips at Aki from the front. Just then, she stumbles forward and everything indicates that she will be unable to avoid it. Olethea instantly switches the setting on her quasar gun, aims and shoots. A beam of negative space cuts through the corridor and straight through the center of the chain, just in time to break its links right in front of the poorly endowed girl's neck, causing it to leave her unharmed.
While she was unable to see the spectral apparitions attacking her before and could only explain away the power of the gun with secret technology, witnessing a girl getting decapitated in front of her and then seeing that head float into the air, speaking of things she does not understand, before summoning a chain that can move on its own and rip through reinforced wooden walls flipped a switch inside her. Finally reaching her mental breaking point, Aki plops to the floor and relieves herself uncontrollably, a blank expression on her face as she looks up to the pieces of the chain that almost killed her.
"Man, bodily functions are a pain, huh?" Olethea walks up to her and says so jokingly, trying to console her classmate after her act. However, it does not seem to reach her, as she just remains on the ground, shivering with unfocused eyes. "Yeah, guess that is quite traumatic." Kicking a broken chain link, she remarks casually and turns back around to see the battle that is about to begin between Senka and Akane.
"A Dullahan template, huh?" Commenting casually, the stitched girl looks up at the floating head and lifts an eyebrow. "Where did you get that from?"
"I was in Ireland last summer." Akane replies, her cheeks ripping open once more to reveal her gruesome grin - all in accordance to the legend of the Dullahan.
"Where's your horse?" Apparently that question touches upon a nerve, as the floating head frowns and looks away silently, before glaring at Senka as if implying that she should not have asked this. The cold blue aura surrounding her body flickers and slowly spreads outwards.
"I don't know how to ride..." But she still answers truthfully, trying to play the issue down by keeping her voice low.
"Pfft." Senka is unable to suppress the air from escaping through her open cheek, so she just rolls with it and laughs unabashedly. "Hahaha, the Horseless Headless Horsewoman? Now that's what I call a nice one!"
"Silence!" Akane's sinister voice that seems to vibrate the very air is clearly filled with anger. The aura surrounding her body explodes in all directions and take the form of countless spirits, but they leave Senka unfazed. "I will rip your soul out and enslave it for eternity! That way, I will regain the spirits you stole from me, too."
"Uhm, sorry to tell you, but those spirits don't exist anymore." Stating with an almost disinterested looking expression, Senka squashes the headless girl's hopes.
"... wait, what do you mean by that?"
"Hm... I guess saying that I digested them is the easiest way to explain it. I turned them into energy."
At these words, Akane's face goes blank and her turbulent aura ceases all its motions. Her lips quiver and tears form in the corners of her eyes, as the cold blue spirit fire emerging from the severed ends of her neck slowly change to orange and then a blazing red. With a murderous glare, she stretches out her hand to the side. Her aura whirls about her open palm and forms a handle, which she grabs and pulls forward. Following her motion, a stream of spectral energy takes the shape of a human spine; this is the traditional weapon of a Dullahan.
"I do not like to use a template to this degree, but against you, I will have to." Akane's skin color changes to that of a decaying corpse, as her clothes flake off like leaves crumbling in a fire, replaced by a black suit of armor that lays itself over her piece by piece. "A Dullahan cannot be stopped by any means and brings death to all mortals!"
"Gotta pop your bubble again: I'm immortal." With an almost bored expression, Senka's eyes grow black again and the skull pattern spreads out to cover her entire face.
"What?!" Before the headless girl can say any more, Senka extends her palm towards her and in a grabbing and pulling motion, yanks out her soul. Watching the spectral apparition that is her main spirit distance itself from her body, Akane is unable to comprehend how that could happen. Then she looks down in horror and sees the drum-like object that was thrown at her when their battle just started, opened and whirring with a sound that appears to be charging up, right underneath the spirit. "Wai-"
"Nope." Interrupting the headless girl's plea with a simple denial, the stitched girl opens her hand once more, and Akane's soul is sucked into the device, which promptly closes and ceases its functions. "That was kind of anticlimactic, don't you think?" She looks down at the proton pack and then back up to her former classmate, who blinks in confusion. "You don't get it? You just became mortal."
For a moment, Akane stares at the device blankly, then she looks at her own body, where the wound in the chest has begun to bleed again. Her eyes widen in disbelief as she makes her head slowly float back onto the stump of her neck to reconnect with it. The hole should have healed when she changed into a Dullahan, since they are immune to curses, but it appears that Senka was speaking the truth.
"How... can you do... that?" She presses out from between her bluish lips and her knees buckle. Due to heavy blood loss, she is weakening at a rapid rate, and even she knows that this means the end. "What... are you...?"
"... I said it two times already, but I guess third time's the charm." Flicking a strand of hair over her shoulder in a haughty motion, Senka looks down on her dying opponent and remarks with a hint of displeasure. "I'm the Avenger Doll." The skull pattern on her face fades once more and she turns away, just when the spiritual aura surrounding the girl's body fully dissipates. Akane falls forward with lifeless eyes and stops moving, the air escaping her mouth for the last breath.
"Wow, you're so cool, Senka~ ♡" Olethea runs up to the doll-like girl and lifts her into her arms. "I didn't have much to do this time."
"Yeah, it's as if this was an episode meant to show off my powers or something." Rolling her eyes, the stitched girl lets the embrace happen. But when her face is pressed into the red-head's large breasts, irritation on her face. "Seriously, what's the point of these oversized lumps of fat?!" She slaps them and Olethea lets go of the Senka in surprise.
"Ahn~ ♡" That only serves to further irritate the latter and she slaps them once more from the other side.
"They're only there to spite me, right?" She looks away and spots Aki, who is looking in her direction with an expression of joy at having found a comrade in chest size. Ignoring it deliberately, Senka points behind herself, at the proton pack lying on the ground. "I suppose that concludes our job?"
"Yes, it does. Good work." Giving her a thumbs-up, Olethea smiles broadly, before lifting the drum-shaped item with one hand. She suddenly fumbles and drops it with a thud, causing Senka to stare at her in shock. Quickly picking it up again, the red-head holds it up with a forced innocent smile, a waterfall of sweat pouring from her forehead.
"... I hope that was meant to be an unfunny joke." The stitched girl is clearly not amused.
"O-of course it was. W-who do you think I am?" Her eyes swimming left and right, Olethea avoids looking directly at Senka.
"The Red Klutz." Taking the proton pack from the clumsy red-head, she attaches it to the hard point on her thigh, where she will be able to keep it safe.
"Well done, and without causing much unnecessary collateral damage, for once. I will take care of the cleanup." Paznik speaks, even though he has no visible mouth. With his two pairs of intense eyes, he is looking at Olethea and Senka at the same time with a pair each.
"What do you mean, for once?" The eldar inquires in indignation, but the doll-like girl sighs and looks up to the gray-skinned alien on the screen.
"So that's what a Soulstealer is, huh?" She asks, considering the similarities between their target and her this time. "Would you categorize me as one, too?"
"We have no idea what exactly you are. Genetically, you are a human, and judging by your Spiritas level, you are comparable to a Star Vampire." Without showing a hint of what he thinks about Senka's question, Paznik responds truthfully. "You could seek counsel from the-"
"Nah, I'm not really that interested." The stitched girl interrupts him and leaves her seat, plopping down on her bed and picking up a manga to read.
"What is with her?" A hint of confusion can be seen in the middle-man, as he turns all four eyes to Olethea once more.
"Don't mind her, she's just miffed that we'll be leaving this dimension soon and she won't see her new friend for a while." With a shrug, the red-head whispers, but a book comes flying and hits the back of her head. "Ouch!"
"I can hear you." Senka states without looking up from her reading matter. Sighing once more, she turns over a page, before looking up into space. "Hm, you're still here? Are you expecting some long-winded aftermath story? Want to know what happened to the survivors?" Closing the manga, she sits up from the bed and tilts her head with a wholly disinterested expression. "Or what's going to happen between Olethea and the cutesy little teacher?"
"Hm?" The girl in question turns her head but Senka simply waves at her to return her attention to Paznik, who is speaking about the details of the cleanup work.
"Or maybe... you're one of the few who realized that something's up?" A mischievous smile that stretches the stitches on her face, she asks quietly. "You want to know if this is the world a certain tentacle monster girl is from, right?" Pausing for dramatic effect, she looks at Olethea's back, before returning her gaze into space. "... who knows?"
With an exaggerated shrug and an impish, toothy grin, Senka returns her attention to the manga in her hands.