From Death to Life

“I should’ve expected to see you here,” Honoha said, dryly.

“And we were expecting you,” Azana said, her nails stretching outwards to form their usual sharpened talons. “How about you make things easier for us and give up already? Give us that knife while you’re at it too.”

I had Kyoha trained on her as well, though this girl knows how I usually fight. Luckily, the cheat-code for all of her moves let me even up that advantage, so I was pretty confident. “I don’t think there’s any point running either. We’ll find you again, even if you head back to the afterlife.”

“I guess that’s true,” Honoha said. “Not used to having this many eyes on me after all. First time ever, haha. That’s great, I guess.”

“You know what? Screw the talking,” Azana growled. “You’re coming with me, one way or another.”

Instantly, Azana leaped forward to jump at Honoha. The girl immediately sidestepped and out of the portal from behind, something came out. An arm? A really big arm, actually. A crazy big arm that immediately sent Azana flying out of the apartment window.

“Shoot!”

“Azana!”

The two of us reacted immediately and I readied my gun, immediately beginning to shoot at the hand. The ringing in my ears hurt, but I stood my ground. The bullets however bounced off of the hand, as it began to tear its way into this world.

“Akina! Jump out!” Miharu shouted in my ears. With no time to argue with her, I immediately tossed myself out of the window at the speed of sound. This probably wasn’t the best idea, as I suffered the pain of a thousand glass lacerations across my skin. Ow.

Then, I landed onto the ground. My wounds were being patched up, and I noticed Azana standing next to me. She was looking back up at the apartment that I came from, and I looked up too. A long, translucent, green spectral arm burst out of the apartment. Then a large roaring came out, shaking the entire ground.

Its head popped out of the apartment, before the rest of the body stepped on top of the nearest building. It took the form of a long, humanoid monster. Skinny relative to its own frame but way bigger than any apparition I had seen so far. The glowing green skin itself had faces, lots of different kinds of faces. Many of them merged into one.

“It’s an apparition amalgamation! I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Azana said, looking up in awe.

“Well, isn’t it going to wreck the city? We need to stop it!” I responded.

“Right!”

We saw the monster begin to step onto the street, towering over any house that was nearby and start walking down the road. Every step shook the ground, as it headed into the city. The noise did not go unnoticed, and I could see people immediately begin to panic and run across the streets.

The two of us began running after it. We needed to do everything we could right now.

***

“Where the hell is this thing going?” I shouted as Azana and I ran across the street. The steps that we took were fast, but we were getting outpaced by the creature’s massive legs as it walked on all fours down the residential area.

“I don’t know! But…” Azana looked up. “That girl is up there. Maybe if we can get to her then we can force her to stop it.”

“Akina. Check that device!” Miharu ordered. I decided to look at the device that Junpei gave me. The compass was pointing in a direction, straight ahead. I then looked forwards, and saw a house that was all too familiar to me.

“Yoshio’s house?!” I shouted.

“What? Do you know what they’re doing with that thing?” Azana asked.

“I don’t know, but… if she’s trying to head to Yoshio’s house… we need to stop her, now!” I shouted.

“Shit. I’ll try and climb up this thing. You figure out something!”

Azana turned back on all fours to try and climb on this thing’s hind. On the other hand, I immediately dashed down the street. Far down to the end, as fast as I could. The compass kept pointing in this direction, into the house.

SLAM. SLAM. SLAM.

Miharu popped out of my body. Mostly for engagement. It would be easier if it was the both of us. The door opened, and Mrs. Lio answered.

“Akina? Miharu?”

“Yes, it’s us. Did you call the police?” I frantically asked. “Is Yoshio safe?”

“I already hit the button, do you need shelter? Yoshio and I are hunkering down in the basement.”

“I…” Miharu looked back. “I don’t think hiding in the basement is the safest idea. I think you need to pack Yoshio up and get out of here as soon as possible.”

“Miharu’s right,” I added. “Try and get him in the car and drive as far as you can. The house, it’s… it’s a target. Just, go!”

Mrs. Lio didn’t fully comprehend what we were trying to say, but she trusted us enough to know that we were serious. She closed the door to go grab Yoshio, while I turned back and faced down the giant colossus running down the street. Honoha stood on top of the creature, a glared focus in her eyes.

Miharu flew into my body once again, and I felt her energy flowing into me.

“Miharu. I’m going to need as much of your power as possible.”

“You don’t even need to ask.”

All of her energy began pushing into my legs, and off the ground. With one large jump, I leaped off of the ground and as high into the air as possible. I was impressed at how much force I could output, as I flew sky high above every building I saw.

On the way up, I made eye contact with Honoha, who saw me. With a quick arm, she slashed in front of me and a small rift opened up. The cheat-code sheet allowed me to identify what rift it was, and I pulsed out an energy blast instantly to knock it back. The rift dissipated and Honoha flipped backwards onto her feet.

“You always have a way of ruining everything, don’t you?” Honoha asked, with her knife in her hand.

“Nah. I’d call it solving everything, instead,” I said, with a stupid smile.

“Oh my god.”

With my comment out of the way, I took out my knife and began to clash against Honoha once again. The two of us traded strikes for a while, and we were quite evenly matched. I knew all of her moves, and so did she.

Any rift that spawned in an apparition, I would be able to take care of. It became second-nature to predict, but she was blocking all of my attacks like it was second nature too. Was I really still this sloppy?

Our clash continued, and continued, with no end in sight. Though, it seemed to be frustrating Honoha that I wasn’t going down yet.

“If I’m going to make my mark on this city, I’m going to do it right. And I won’t let you get away with stopping me!”

“You could’ve made your mark in literally any other way! Destroying the city? You’ll only be remembered as a criminal, and the rest of your life has been thrown away!” I shouted back.

“It’s better than not being remembered at all—!”

“HYAAAAH!”

Before Honoha could finish her sentence, she got sent flying towards me as a sharp claw sliced at her back. In a quick reaction, I kicked Honoha back off of me and onto the other side. Azana snarled, as she got up.

“For someone who talks a lot about memory, you sure do forget about me a lot!” Azana shouted. “You’re outnumbered, pipsqueak! Call off your monster or else!”

“Grrrgh—” Honoha groaned on the ground, but instead of calling the creature off, she shouted. “Get these two off of me! I’ll get you some damn food! That’s why we came to this damn house, didn’t we?”

That seemed to provoke a reaction in the monster, and one of its long, lanky arms grabbed something. A car. It lifted the entire thing up in the palm of its hand, but what was worse is the shout that I heard come next.

“YOSHIO!” The voice of Mrs. Lio rang through the air, and I saw the creature raise its hand with the car in tow. The front door was open, but the back door was locked shut. It seemed like the creature snagged Yoshio just before Mrs. Lio could drive away. Damn it!

“You sick…” I shouted at Honoha, but I only had time to just react before the creature swung the car over its head, trying to swat me off. I jumped over it, but from the inside I could hear the worst sound I could ever hear.

“HEEEELP!” Yoshio shouted. I had a new priority, save Yoshio first and foremost. I immediately shifted focus to the creature’s arm.

“We’re going to have to move fast,” I told Miharu.

“Luckily, fast is what I do. We can’t take any risks with Yoshio in danger!” Miharu reassured me.

“It’s time for your snack, big boy!” Honoha shouted as I began to run. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her leap off of the monster and stab a hole into the air. She began to pull down with all her might.

“Oh no you don’t!” Azana shouted and began to chase her. She leaped forwards to grab at Honoha, who was floating in the air and trying to create a brand new rift. But, I needed to focus.

I began to run up the creature’s arm. It was wildly swinging around the car, with Yoshio inside. Luckily, he was a good kid and wore his seatbelt, or else things would be a lot worse. My legs took me as fast as I could up the arm before I managed to reach up to its hand.

With a quick leap down, I landed on the roof of the car and opened the sunroof. Looking inside, I saw Yoshio holding on for dear life as this car swung around.

“Yoshio!”

“Ms. Lady!”

I reached my hand out towards him, and he grabbed it. I took him into my arms and picked him up out of the car. With that, I leaped down onto the creature’s head again, and looked to where Honoha and Azana were.

“Get off of me you stupid mouthy lady! Why do you always have to bite me?!” Honoha shouted, kicking at Azana who was holding onto her ankle with her teeth as they hung in space. She had managed to cut open a really big rift right now. Eventually, Honoha managed to kick Azana off and onto the ground, before finishing tearing open the rift.

With a flip over, she managed to land back onto the creature’s head. “There! Now eat to your god damn heart’s content— AGH!”

Without thinking, I put down Yoshio and rammed into Honoha, knocking her down. I ran back to Yoshio to pick him up, but Miharu then alerted me to something.

“Akina! You see that? It’s eating apparitions into its own core that is in its mouth. I can sense it now! Maybe if we shoot something powerful into the core, it’ll destabilize the creature!”

I looked downwards, and she was right. The creature had opened its mouth to eat various apparitions flowing out of the rift that Honoha created. All going towards a strange, glowing orb in the back of its mouth.

“Good thinking, Miharu,” I responded out loud. “And I think I know just the thing.”

I put Yoshio on my shoulders, and in one of my hands, I spun my favorite weapon in the entire world. Kyoha. “Yoshio. Cover your ears. Don’t want you to go deaf. I’m getting you down from here.”

I began to run forward and before leaping down in front of the creature’s mouth. The glowing orb core can be seen within as I fell past it. I channeled Miharu’s eyes into my own, and everything began to move in slow motion. As we fell, it gave me time to adjust my positioning with Kyoha, aiming at the orb.

And then…

BANG!

I released a shot that sent me flying backwards into the air, but it hit the orb dead-on. A perfect shot! The blast from Kyoha was so powerful, the orb within the creature shattered and broke into a thousand pieces. With that, the monster let out a moan, and began to fade away. The spirits that were amalgamated into its body began to flow out and away into the air, as the centre holding it together broke.

I had done it. I saved the city—

“AGH!”

Suddenly, a large force crashed into me and Yoshio, sending me flying even further backwards. It was Honoha! Yoshio held onto my back, as this girl tackled me from the front, sending us all flying backwards.

“Wait. Akina! Look out!”

Miharu tried to warn me, but I was too busy getting clobbered in the face by this vicious catgirl.

“MS. LADY!” Yoshio also shouted out, but it was too late.

“I’ll show you!” Honoha said. As the force of her body pushed all of us back through the air, and into the giant rift she made.

And that is where we fell.