Four - Chapter 5 - Go for Broke - Part 1
Possible titles so far:
Fifth Symphony
Take Five
High Five
Fifth Wheel
Five Parts
Five Acts
Five Alarm
Five Senses
Go for Broke (the current front runner)
Now that I've gotten to this point of the battle winding down I'm wondering if I've overdone it. Is it too intense/dramatic? Should I soften it somehow or trim it down, and if so, how? Or am I just being a worrypants like usual? Opinions please.
Aaaaand we're winding down to the end is when it forces me to split the chapter in half. Again. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO BREATHER CHAPTERS WHERE I CAN HAVE SINGLE POSTS AGAIN.
UPDATED: September 16, 10:00pm
Edit - This half of chapter five is officially unlocked for public viewing. Suggestions for chapter preview images and feedback are always welcome.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1 - The One to Carry On
Chapter 2 - Second Thoughts
Chapter 3 - Third Degree Part 1/Part 2
Chapter 4 - Shield Maiden Part 1/Part 2
Alternate Reading Venues: FanFiction.Net You-fic.net deviantART Archive of Our Own
Kurama’s feet flew across the pavement as he searched for Botan among the warehouses. He reached out with his senses for any trace of her Spirit Energy and found her in most unwanted company. A group of at least two dozen humans had gathered in the juncture between warehouses, surrounding Botan on all sides. Two burly men in hardhats held the reaper’s arms captive, but they were not what forced her to stand rigid and unresisting. The orange demon hovered in front of her, pointing a shard of glass at her throat. The boy Botan had been trying to rescue was in a similar state of distress, hanging limp between two factory workers, as the green demon held a jagged piece of metal beneath his chin. The purple demon hovered in-between the two captives, holding the red trident from earlier between its small stubby arms. Before, the weapon was at least a meter taller than the demon in her larger form, but now it was barely a meter long.
The purple demon spotted Kurama shortly after he rounded the corner of a warehouse not far from the site, and pointed her trident at him. “Hold it right there! Not one more step or we spill blood!”
Kurama stopped, his muscles so tense from a combination of anger and the desire to act in such a dire situation that the hand clutching of his Rose Whip twitched. He recognized some of the gathered humans as ones he and the girls snuck past earlier. They stood stiffly, but their faces were slack, some drooling. Their eyes never focused on any one thing, moving about with no real pattern beneath drooping eyelids, pupils dilated to their fullest. A sour smell of burnt human flesh and fabric hung in the air from an unseen source, but the fox demon did not need to see the wound to identify the victim seared. It explained exactly why Botan screamed moments ago.
“Drop your weapons and surrender,” the purple demon said.
Kurama was careful to make no sudden moves as he assessed the situation. Though the three demons were holding the boy hostage, it seemed unlikely that they would harm him, as Irokafue appeared too possessive of her ‘children’ to want to lose any of them. That meant that that the redhead needed to focus on reaching Botan before the color demons hurt her again. He just needed to create an opportunity to strike. “What guarantee do I have that you will keep your word?”
“Don’t do it, Kurama!” Botan said, her voice cracking and coming out at a raised octave due to the terror that seized her.
The gathered humans drew sharp implements from their pockets – knives, box cutters, rusted bits of broken metal, and the like – and pressed the sharp points to their throats. The only ones who remained still were the four humans holding Botan and the boy captive. The purple demon smiled. “Mamma wants us to play with you, and we can’t play if you kill us again.”
“Better hurry,” the orange demon said.
“We want to play,” the green demon said.
Kurama allowed his Rose Whip to drop to the ground. “What exactly do you wish to ‘play’?”
The purple demon exploded with a loud pop, instantly reverting to her giant, grotesque form with a shuddering thud against the pavement, which cracked beneath her feet. The double-ended trident grew along with her, reverting back to its original impressive length. She opened her mouth until her forehead touched her back, as though a hinge held the top of her head to her spine. She sunk the trident past rows of irregular jagged teeth until only one of the pointed ends of the trident was visible, then snapped her mouth closed with a sound not unlike rocks cracking and grinding together. Her body racked with tremors until she let out a belch of flames that came dangerously close to searing a few of the nearby humans. Vibrant red flames lit up in the white bulbs that were her eyes, moving like pupils to focus on Kurama. “Tag.”
Kurama leapt high into the air to dodge a fireball that the purple demon blew in his direction. He landed on top of one of the nearby warehouses, away from the hostages so they would not be incinerated in the inferno like his Rose Whip. The purple demon launched herself in his direction like a cannonball, tearing a hole through the warehouse wall and ceiling at an upward angle, bursting through the roof behind him. The redhead moved quickly to avoid another wall of flame that melted the metal that had once been beneath his feet. The purple demon stood on the empty air where the roof used to be then launched herself after him when he landed on an adjacent warehouse.
Kurama was quick to take the chase to the alleyways, where he would be not so easy to spot. Unfortunately there were more humans with spasmodic eyes slowly migrating towards the direction he left Botan, and the fox demon was forced to constantly change his course to avoid them or risk his safety to carry them out of the path of flames meant for him.
With each attack, Kurama found himself forced to move further away from Botan’s location, despite his attempts to circle back. Somehow, the demon managed to anticipate his moves and cut off his route or a human wound up in jeopardy in the opposite direction. The sudden speed and new abilities of his adversary gave the fox demon little doubt that her intelligence had been elevated as well. I’m being herded.
Unfortunately, Kurama could do little with such knowledge. The flames’ heat was so intense they would incinerate virtually any plant in his arsenal and using any sort of weapon against the purple demon meant Botan and the controlled humans would be in jeopardy. He could only evade and seek out some weakness to the enemy’s strategy.
Irokafue wove silver threads along her neck, reattaching her head to its proper place. A quiet, wet laughter hissed from her throat. “Such a fool this Kurama is. Does that dog of Spirit World truly think the great Irokafue would not realize whom he is and how we can so easily end such a worthless life as his?”
Amaya held her hand over her chest, willing her heart to calm down from its frantic beating. She was still not fully recovered from the shock of seeing Irokafue’s decapitated body move and speak, or the casual way in which the demon stitched herself back together. It was all the Spirit Detective could do to force herself to speak the questions pressing on her mind and stall the demon until Kurama returned with Botan. “You… know about Kurama… and Spirit World?”
Irokafue continued her work without the slightest pause. “Such pathetic cows with their pathetic barrier. They only delay the inevitable.” The whites of her eyes burned brighter. “I will see my babies returned to their mother’s loving bosom and I will feed them the charred remains of Spirit World’s cattle.”
I guess I should’ve expected she wouldn’t answer. Amaya tried to calm her nerves and consider what her next course of action should be. Even if she risked using her energy with a Spirit Gun, Irokafue appeared to be immortal, so it would do nothing but lessen the time she could maintain her Territory.
A strange light on Irokafue’s chest caught Amaya’s attention. At first, she thought that a pair of white flames like the demon’s eyes appeared on top of the black bustier, but she then noticed a strange overlay of black over white flame and silver skin over black. The Spirit Detective squinted her eyes and tried to will the Psychic Spyglass to help her see more clearly in that area. The barely concealed cleavage disappeared as easily as the tight fabric, revealing the patch of skin to be as artificial as Irokafue’s clothes. A pair of orbs made from blackened glass, each blazing with a white flame at their center, was concealed in the curve of what were supposed to be the demon’s breasts.
The sight initially baffled Amaya. Are those… demonic breast implants? Almost instantly she dismissed the idea as foolish, despite Irokafue’s obvious vanity. They’re like her eyes… What if those are her weak points? She was not certain of her hypothesis, as it reminded her too much of the glowing vulnerable spots on boss monsters in video games, but she felt inclined to believe that possibility more than the idea that Irokafue was truly immortal. If that’s true, then maybe I can…
“You there,” Irokafue said. Her voice was a sharp whip, cracking through the growls of the transformed children, rendering them silent, save for their echoes. Amaya snapped out of her thoughts and focused on the silver demon, who was whole once more and staring her down. “You must be the shrine maiden whom created this barrier. Though you covet my children, I will offer you one chance at mercy and a swift, painless death at the hands of the very children you wish to steal. Will you obey?”
“No.”
Irokafue narrowed her eyes. “Damned human cow! You are nothing but cattle to feed both demons and denizens of Spirit World! You whom are so easily used and discarded should feel honored to give your life for children! Have you no sense of love or compassion?”
“Of course I do!” The simple ease in which Amaya found herself responding to Irokafue, despite her lingering fears, strengthened her resolve. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand what it means to love anyone!” The Spirit Detective felt the talisman crumple in her hand as she gripped it tightly in her trembling fist. “You…” She felt a plethora of insults spring to mind, but she held them back. No. I need to play this smart. She forced a smile, which was more teeth than a curving of her lips. “You don’t deserve these children. I’d rather take them to Spirit World myself than let you lay a finger on them ever again.”
Irokafue’s fingers twitched. “My babies will not be Spirit World’s sacrifices. You whom prefers to be the slaughtered lamb has no right to claim my babies deserve death!”
“I can change them back you know,” Amaya said. She tried to sound flippant as she flicked back her bangs. “I have the power to turn them all human again and I’m sure every single one of them will hate you for what you’ve done, and I’m betting you know that too.”
Irokafue took a step forward, her heel stabbing a hole into the concrete floor. “Lies! My babies know unending loyalty! You will not turn them back to their hideous aging forms! I will slaughter you where you stand if you lay a single finger on any of them!”
Amaya pushed the Psychic Spyglass down the bridge of her nose, angling her head so that she gazed over top them in what she hoped was a sufficiently haughty manner. “I already did, and you know it, don’t you? You probably felt it when I changed that boy back earlier. I can do it again, and again, and I’ll keep doing it until all of these children are free from you once and for all.”
Irokafue shrieked and threw her arms out. Thin threads of silver streaked towards Amaya’s Territory. The Spirit Detective flinched when the strands struck the barrier, but quickly relaxed as they slid to the ground harmlessly before disappearing.
Amaya thought of the way Izumi taunted her in the past and channeled those memories, imitating her tormenter’s nonchalant stance, the slight roll of the head, the upturning of the eyes, and a quiet scoff that created a faint snort when she exhaled. “Pathetic, don’t you think? I’ll bet you didn’t try to use that against Kurama because you knew it wouldn’t hurt him either. You can’t do anything without your trolls doing the dirty work for you, or using children as shields, can you? What if Kurama decided to just kill the children instead of avoiding them? You would probably be in even smaller pieces than those three.” She pointed to the tattered remains of the blue, red, and yellow color demons.
Irokafue charged at Amaya’s Territory, throwing her body against the border with all her strength. The shield did not show the slightest reaction to the impact, even as the demon threw her fists against it in front of the Spirit Detective’s grinning face. “You will be silent! I will not suffer your insults to my children! You will not steal my babies from me! My children will eat you slowly while you plead for death, you filthy human cow!”
Amaya did her best to maintain her conceited smile as she adjusted the Psychic Spyglass so that they rested properly on her face. She would only have one shot with her Spirit Gun if she used the Concentration Ring. She doubted that she would have a better opportunity to hit Irokafue’s weak spots, which meant that she needed to fire two blasts at the same time. The problem was she was not terribly confident in her ability to use two Spirit Guns simultaneously. When she extended her index fingers and thumbs, she remembered the talisman she held in the palm of her right hand and how the charm affected Horumon and the transformed children. If I have to stick my hands outside the shield anyway…
The berserker rage Irokafue felt blinded her to everything but the burning desire to destroy the barrier separating her from the human she wished to break. She switched from throwing punches to scraping her nails against the surface against the Territory, focusing all of her energy into a sharp point that she intended to crack the edge of the blue dome like an eggshell. She did not realize that Amaya had been waiting for her to go still, or that the Spirit Detective could easily reach out through the barrier to grab her.
Irokafue’s screech of outrage when Amaya seized her by the breast quickly dissolved into a wail of anguish. The intense surge of power channeled through the anti-demon talisman struck the orb that lay hidden within her bosom, creating an explosion that sent both demon and detective flying backwards. The silver demon howled until her voice broke as she lay curled on the floor around the smoking crater formed in her chest, the cry echoed by the transformed children. When her agonized wails finally faded, the children grew silent once more.
Amaya bit her lip in a futile gesture to distract herself from the pain in her right hand as she held it tightly against her chest out of instinct. Reluctantly, she looked at the damage and cringed at the results of the explosion. Black streaks of burns stained her hands around the charred remains of the talisman that once rested within her palm. The umbrella that hung from her wrist broke from its band sometime during the explosion and lay on the ground just outside her Territory with its now warped handle extended. Only the Concentration Ring resting on her ring finger seemed unscathed despite some dark stains. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!
Amaya used her uninjured hand to push herself up to her knees towards the barrier. To her dismay, she saw that the explosion only eliminated one of the orbs, and the other was barely halfway visible due to the position of Irokafue’s arms. The Spirit Detective had hoped that she could fire her Spirit Gun with her left hand while she used the ward with her right, but the explosion destroyed her concentration and dissipated the Spirit Energy she gathered before she had a chance to fire. The searing pain that throbbed in her right hand demanded her attention, dulling her focus as she pointed at Irokafue with her left hand. Her Spirit Energy was reluctant to migrate to the tip of her finger and the tremors rippling through her body made it nearly impossible to aim. She tried to use her right hand to brace the left but pain racked her body with the force of a tsunami crashing into the shore, destroying her concentration and rendering her unable to do little else but double over and cradle her burnt hand.
Irokafue slowly rose from the ground, her movements jerky and unbalanced. With one hand she clutched the blackened hole left behind by the explosion and grasped her remaining orb with the other. “How dare you… How dare a human swine like you touch and mar the perfect body of Irokafue! You will suffer! I will make you suffer a thousand hells!”
Irokafue took hold of her shakuhachi and began to play what Amaya dimly recognized as her second melody. The notes echoed off the warehouse walls, more haunting now that the children were utterly silent. The Spirit Detective felt tense as she listened, waiting. Though the melody had yielded no results so far, Amaya knew that there must have been a reason why Irokafue insisted on playing it. The anticipation of what was to come was almost as terrible as the answer, which came over a minute after the song began.
Humans slowly migrated into the warehouse, entering through the doors and various holes the earlier battle created. The spasmodic movements of their half-open eyes and the sluggish, jerky way they stepped and swung their arms like dead weights reminded Amaya of both zombie movies and what happened to Izumi. That flute… It’s controlling them!
Irokafue smiled around the mouth of the bamboo flute as she saw comprehension dawn in Amaya’s eyes. The chilling melody coaxed the humans ever closer to the Spirit Detective’s Territory on all sides. The first to arrive at the edge of the shield drew improvised weapons from tools they carried in their pockets or picked up pieces of debris lying on the ground and used them to strike the barrier.
The weight of conserving such a sizable Territory after using a large portion of her Spirit Energy in her earlier attack and sustaining a terrible injury bore down on Amaya like a blanket made of lead. Though the attacks from the humans were far weaker than any inflicted by a demon, they made up for such a deficiency through sheer numbers, intending to chip away at her energy a fraction at a time. The Spirit Detective swore inwardly and did her best to ignore the pain as she redirected her concentration entirely on maintaining her shield. She tried to see past the factory workers to find Irokafue, but all she saw were slack, uncomprehending faces staring back at her through twitching, glazed eyes. It seemed that the Psychic Spyglass did not see through living creatures like humans, just their clothes. She flicked the off switch to cease the glasses’ incessant drain on her Spirit Energy. Even if she could find Irokafue’s remaining orb, there was no way she could fire her Spirit Gun without hitting any of the controlled workers or risking the destruction of her Territory.
Was it all for nothing?
It took time and a number of tricky maneuvers, but Kurama managed to distance himself from the purple demon. The chase led him to the empty streets at the edge of the factory district, leaving a third of the buildings in the warehouse district collapsed, set ablaze, or melted into piles of warped metal and ash in the purple demon’s wake. He had given up rounding back to where he left Botan, as the fire-breathing demon’s dogged pursuit negated that option. He had another idea in mind, one that made the factory district the ideal location to neutralize the purple demon.
Kurama sought out the nearest meat processing facility. The search took much less time than he anticipated, as he found one not too far from the warehouse district. Piles of cardboard boxes lay piled obtrusively in front of the rusty metal doors that opened to the empty loading dock, indicating that the factory was likely no longer running. Such good fortune prickled his sense of suspicion, but this was not the time to question it. What he required now was a diversion to prevent the purple demon from being aware of his destination until the trap was set.
A wall of flame surged through the alley, creeping steadily closer to Kurama from behind despite how quickly he ran. He spotted a door leading to an adjacent building in the opposite direction of the meatpacking plant and slammed his shoulder into it with enough force to break the cheap lock, allowing him to get out of the path of the fire. The room he entered was a darkened office building, unoccupied save for a few potted plants. With a healthy dose of his demonic energy, he caused the growth of the plants to accelerate as he passed them by – save for one that he took with him – until the office transformed into a forest of ferns. The plants closest to the outside door caught fire immediately, but they served their purpose of obscuring his exact path within the factory proper.
Conveyor belts and machines created a clatter of noise as they did their work autonomously, constructing unknown product and dumping bits of metal components into irregular piles for workers who were no longer there. As Kurama suspected, he was still within range of Irokafue’s influence, which meant that the chances of an innocent person being caught in the crossfire were low. When the fox demon found an emergency exit, he threw the pot in the opposite direction, and ducked behind a piece of nearby machinery only seconds before the purple demon crashed through the walls of the factory.
The burning plants in the office set off the sprinkler system for the entire factory, dousing Kurama and the demon in water. The deafening wail of the fire alarm drowned out even the noisiest machine, covering up the sound of the emergency door opening automatically. The redhead chanced a glance around the corner of the machinery and found the purple demon digging her way out of some metal parts while whipping her head around from side to side. Kurama waited for the moment that his delayed growth of the fern he threw would take effect. The purple demon spotted the green plant when it jammed up one of the machines and spewed fire in its direction. With her back turned, and the intense heat of the flames turning the water to steam to further cloud her vision, the fox demon had the opportunity he needed to slip out the emergency exit undetected.
Kurama knew that time was short until the purple demon realized that he was no longer in the burning factory. With the noise of the fire alarm as cover, he could afford to forego subtlety, knocking aside the boxes blocking the doors to the meatpacking plant before forcing the metal shutters to open despite how they shrieked from a lack of oil.
A cold breeze rolled out the open door, carrying with it the stench of aging blood and flesh. Kurama stood rigid when he identified what sort of meat the factory processed before he saw what hung from the conveyer belt of hooks that dangled from the ceiling. Humans no longer operated the meatpacking plant, as he expected, but that did not mean that the factory was no longer in use or that there were no humans within its walls.
Kurama was not one to let emotions rule him, but the depths of his fury threatened to overwhelm his sense of rationality. He felt the faint stirrings of his demonic blood respond to his anger, much like when he witnessed Yusuke’s murder at the hands of Shinobu. Since that day, he had practiced in secret to transform back to his yoko self, but until that moment he had been unable to recapture the sensation of raw, primal instinct that allowed him to reclaim his previous form and powers. He might not have known anyone among Irokafue’s victims, but the sheer scale of death and suffering she caused was enough to trigger the change.
The purple demon did not come crashing into the meatpacking plant as Kurama had expected. Almost ten minutes after he eluded her, she landed heavily on the loading block, but made no attempt to enter after him. When the fox turned his poisonous golden gaze towards her, the purple demon’s already warped mouth curled, creases folding on her face around her demented smile. “Problem?”
The mocking jeer served the same as throwing gasoline on the flames of Kurama’s hatred, but the fox recognized an attempt at baiting when he heard one. The span of the killing floor separated him from the purple demon, allowing him freedom to act without requiring him to go near the conveyer belt. He was not about to disregard his advantages by charging blindly because of anger. “How long have you and your ‘mother’ been using humans as prey?”
The purple demon made a noise that was akin to rubbing steel wool vigorously against a stone, which Kurama quickly realized was laughter. “You mad?”
It took great effort for Kurama to resist the impulse he had to summon the Ojigi Plant, Death Tree, or a similar vicious plant to rend the purple demon to pieces. The only things holding him back was the weakness the plants held to fire and the knowledge that Irokafue was aware of the physical states of the color demons. Botan was still at the mercy of the orange and green demons and torturing the purple one to death would likely make Irokafue murder the reaper out of retaliation. He would not let them hurt Botan again. “Is this what you brought me here to see?”
The purple demon stopped laughing, but the mocking grin remained. “You noticed.” She entered the factory and swept her arm towards the conveyer belt. “Self-processing meat. It’s the latest in convenience food. Impressive, no?” She took a slight bow. “Too bad they quit halfway through.”
Kurama neither moved nor spoke.
The purple demon lumbered to the processing line and tugged the school uniform of a girl with colorfully streaked black hair. “This one is pretty fresh. Still dressed.”
“Don’t touch them,” Kurama said, the air hissing through his teeth as he spoke.
The gray skirt tore in the purple demon’s clumsy grip. She dropped the tattered piece of fabric, which turned dark after soaking up the filthy fluids staining the drain below. “Did you check for survivors?” She waited for a few seconds until it was apparent Kurama would not answer. She chuckled and raised her shoulders. “Doesn’t matter anyway.”
Both demons made their move in the same instant. The purple demon sucked in cold air while the floor of the meatpacking plant shook and ruptured from dozens of plants bursting through the concrete. Bulbous white flowers the size of hydrants split open, the three petals revealing spathe valves that sprayed a shimmering mist in the same moment that the purple demon unleashed a huge fireball.
Kurama stood his ground in the path of the flames, which disappeared before ever reaching him. The fire did not survive the field of cooling fluid created by the numerous flowers between him and his enemy. Ice appeared and spread across whatever surface the tiny droplets of liquid touched, growing like a living thing. It crawled along the purple demon’s body, breaking off into chunks with each movement she made, only for more to form on her rocky skin a moment later. Leaves lashed out to ensnare her limbs and slow her movements, initially tearing away easily under her massive strength but the task became more difficult as she started to freeze. She spewed large plumes of fire around her feet to burn away the flowers and free herself, but there were too many plants for her inferno to destroy. The field of flowers grew more numerous by the moment under the thief’s careful cultivation of demonic energy.
Kurama allowed himself to feel some satisfaction as he watched the purple demon’s ineffective struggles. “Do you like them? These flowers are called the Ice Maiden’s Kiss. They’re very rare even in the coldest parts of Demon World.” A small, cruel smile played on his lips when he saw the purple demon could no longer move her legs, likely frozen through completely. “I’ve bred this strain to be especially aggressive.”
The purple demon did not show fear or rage, as Kurama had expected. She met his eyes and twisted her mouth into the unnerving smirk she gave earlier. “Too late,” she said, her voice stilted from the cold. If she intended to say more, the words never came, as the flowers finished their work, freezing her demented grin in place.
The meaning was clear – Kurama did not hesitate to race back to the street where he left Botan. He had been gone too long trying to figure out a plan to neutralize the purple demon without killing her. If he had been able to arrange a few minutes in a cold place to speed up the growth of the Ice Maiden’s Kiss Flowers sooner, or did not require such a potent stimulus to transform to his yoko state on his own…
It struck Kurama as strange that the purple demon appeared to arrange such a scenario where he could change intentionally, but he would dwell on what her motive was beyond stall tactics later. Now, he needed to kill the remaining color demons before something terrible happened to either of the girls – if it was not already too late.
Want to read more? Head on to Chapter 5 - Go for Broke - Part 2.
