[Inari Standoff]: The Day Osamu Found His Purpose

With their defenses hastily prepared, Osamu and his friends stationed themselves at different parts of the airport, waiting for the enemy to rush the building. Osamu and Inari sat together atop the escalators of the fifth floor, their eyes glued to the hundreds of exorcists standing outside. Now more than ever, the emptiness and tranquility of the airport seemed so much more precious than eerie.

"It's going to be rough. Very, very rough." Inari said.

"It always has been rough for us." Osamu responded.

"True."

Inari gripped Osamu's hand and smiled. I'll always remember this place and what you did for me here. Even now, with the odds stacked against us, you're still by my side. You just don't come across many people like you, Osamu."

"The same could be said about you. Let's get out of this together, and let's get you home, Inari."

Inari took a deep breath, savoring the last few moments of quiet before the coming battle. "All right. It's been five minutes. They'll come any moment now. Right. Can the others handle themselves?"

"Yeah, Kagu is actually very powerful, and Shinju has a ton of tricks up her sleeve, especially when she's with Cyanide. And you know Taeko better than I do. She's always got something up her sleeve. They'll be fine."

They waited for the first wave of attack in silence. Not a word from Black Maria over the megaphone and no sound of battle cries as the exorcists stormed the airport. There was one sound though; the metallic moan of an airplane being launched right at the airport like a rock out of a slingshot. Inari peeked her head out to see what it was through the windows. The plane's large shadow draped over her body and darkened the entire hall.

Instead of risking being ambushed and blown apart by the surrounding fuel trucks, the shrine maidens had worked in tandem to lift and launch one of the parked planes right at the entrance.

"Get down!" Inari screamed.

Inari jumped on top of Osamu as the plane crashed and ripped through the building, destroying the bakery and most of the fifth floor. The floor beneath Osamu collapsed, sending him and Inari crashing down to the fourth floor below as the fifth continued to collapse. Inari helped Osamu up and leaped down with him to the third floor. Osamu coughed the dust out of his lungs and throat as Inari helped him onto his feet again.

"Freaking psychopaths!" Osamu wheezed. "Who throws a plane into an airport!?"

"Osamu, your friend!" Inari urged.

Directly ahead, Cyanide was pinned under heavy chunks of concrete covering his legs and chest. The wrecked skeleton of the airplane hung above him, caught in the structural support of the floor above and leaking jet fuel down to book shop Cyanide was trapped in. Kagutsuchi and Inari, both of them covered in blood and dust, rushed by his side to help him out of the pile of debris. Shinju and Taeko soon followed, their entire plan thrown for a loop by the unexpected attack.

"I can't move! I can't move anything!" Cyanide screamed in pain.

"Kagutsuchi, help me get this debris off of him!" Taeko ordered.

"Okay!" Kagutsuchi responded, helping Taeko lift chunks of debris off of Cyanide's crushed legs.

"Cyanide! Are you all right?" Osamu shouted, blood leaking down his neck.

"I don't know kid, I can hardly feel a god damn thing!" Cyanide cried.

Osamu caught a glimpse of Cyanide's foot, or what was left of it. It had been reduced to a red paste, the bones and flesh completely smashed. "That's not good..."

Inari scowled as she sniffed the air. "That smell..."

The jet fuel pouring down near Cyanide caught fire and began pooling its way towards him. The flames illuminated the bookstore as she surrounding shelves were quickly consumed in the blaze.

"Shinju, the fuel!" Inari warned.

"Yeah, I know!" Shinju responded, helping lift debris off of Cyanide's chest.

Inari rushed in and helped claw Cyanide out from under the chunks of concrete. With all of the debris off, Inari slung the injured Cyanide onto her back and carried him away from the flaming jet fuel. The entire airport was clouded by a think haze of dust and smoke from the crash. Inari and the others could barely see their own hands in front of them.

"Hey, you all right?" Inari asked.

"I've been better!" Cyanide cried.

Inari laid Cyanide against a wall across from the crash site as Shinju, Kagutsuchi, Taeko, and Osamu looked out for any infiltrators.

"I don't want you to panic, but you're hurt pretty bad." Inari warned.

"I can heal him! You're probably better at fighting anyway." Kagutsuchi said.

"Fuck! Here they come!" Shinju shouted.

The airport drowned in the battle cries of the exorcists as they flooded through the entrance, storming in by the hundreds. Taeko stood and pointed towards the coming exorcists, her face soaked in her own blood.

"Advance and spread out! We need to keep them away from Kagu and Cyanide!" Taeko roared.

"Got it!" Inari grunted. "Osamu!"

Osamu nodded. "Do it!”
Inari possessed Osamu's body in an instant. With her strength, he picked up the wing of the crashed plane, spun around to gain momentum, and threw it into the crowd of exorcists below. The wing ripped through dozens of them like a blade through grass, spraying the entrance and surrounding exorcists in a mist of blood and marrow.

"Nice shot, Osa!" Shinju complimented.

"Don't thank me, it's Inari that's doing everything right now!" Osamu said, picking up part of the airplane's fuselage.

While Osamu bombarded the exorcists with plane wreckage, Shinju continued to pick them off with bursts of flesh-ripping air from her fingertips, saturating the air with the confetti of blood and organs.

"It's time! We'll have to go in now!" Inari urged.

"Shinju, keep me covered!" Osamu ordered.

Shinju nodded as she kept firing "Got it!"

Osamu leaped down and smashed through the center of the army like a boulder fired from a catapult. His landing cratered the tile floor and knocked every surrounding exorcists onto their backs. Now he was up close. He felt the heat radiating from their bodies and smelled the blood and sweat staining their faces. He stared into the fierce glares of battle-hardened men and the horrified faces of young shrine maidens. He smelled the conditioner the maidens used in their hair, heard the gasps and screams of the people he had just knocked onto the floor.

"I'm gonna try something, Osamu! Let me know if it feels weird." Inari said.

"What are you going to do?" Osamu asked.

Osamu watched as his hands weaved a lightning-fast series of ten kuji-in hand signs before clasping together. The blood in his veins turned cold and the hairs on his arms stood up. Everyone around him suddenly stopped. Their screams went silent and not a single word was said.

"Kill each other." Inari said.

Just as she commanded, the exorcists turned their weapons on each other, shooting their own comrades with arrows and blowing each other apart with blasts of pressured air. Osamu stood in the epicenter of all the carnage and watched in horror as the enemy turned on themselves.

Taeko leaned over the glass railing and watched from the floor above with a piercing, monstrous glare. An exorcist's body was flung towards her, exploding like a water balloon filled with blood. The explosion painted the glass railing red and splattered across her cheek, but Taeko remained still, her gaze unyielding.

"So that's how easy it is." Taeko muttered. "That's the death of free will as we know it."

"Inari, how did you do that?" Osamu asked.

"I'm the only one that can do this. I reckon it's because I've been eating flesh and drinking blood for so long that I've developed an entirely new set of powers." Inari said.

"Osamu, Inari! Look out!"

The blades of Black Maria's helicopter ripped away the shroud of smoke covering the airport. She slammed open the side door, aiming the mounted minigun directly at Osamu.

"Ma'am! That's explosive ammunition! You're sure to hit friendlies!" warned the pilot.

Black Maria gritted her teeth, her vision going red as she thought of White Saint. "Danger close doesn't matter to me! I just want them dead!"

(This isn't over yet. We've still got to deal with Black Maria and the other exorcists!)

"Osamu!" Kagutsuchi screamed.

Black Maria unleashed a storm of bullets upon Osamu as he sprinted through the halls, the explosive ammunition shattering glass and tearing up the tiled floors and pillars behind him. Kagutsuchi ran around to the other end of the hall, appearing on the opposite side as Osamu. She turned the corner with her hands clasped, her kuji-in hand signs already woven. She pointed her palm at the windows, covering the empty frames with an invisible force field. Black Maria's bullets rebounded off of the force field, flying right past her face and the tail of the helicopter.

"Damn her!" Black Maria growled, ceasing fire.

"I did it!" Kagutsuchi cheered.

Osamu laughed, thrilled that he made it out of that alive. "Great job, Kagu!"

"Damn, she makes it look easy!" Inari complimented.

"Is Cyanide okay?" Osamu asked.

Kagutsuchi nodded. "Yeah, for now!"

Taeko ran down the hall, her eyes glued to the helicopter outside. "Osamu, grab another piece of the wreckage! Kagutsuchi, wait for my signal! We're taking down that helicopter!"

Everyone scrambled into action. Osamu yanked the plane's front wheel out of the mess of collapsed stone and concrete. His face stinging with sweat, Osamu kept his eyes on the helicopter while Kagutsuchi extended her palm towards the windows. Taeko waited until the helicopter turned sideways, exposing the tail.

"Now!" Taeko screamed

Kagutsuchi undid the force field while Osamu spun around with the wheel in hand. He extended one leg forward and let the wheel fly out from his hands and out of the empty window frame. The wheel ripped through the air like a bullet and severed the helicopter's tail rotor in an instant.

Black Maria fell backwards as the helicopter spun and plummeted towards the tarmac. The crowd of exorcists stationed outside scattered for their lives as the helicopter nearly came down on top of them as it crashed into the runway, its blades snapping off like brittle bones.

"Good shot, Osamu!" Taeko complimented.

"Look! Someone's still trapped in there!" Kagutsuchi said, pointing at the helicopter.

Black Maria stumbled onto her knees and crawled her way into the cockpit. Blood dripped down from her scalp onto the right side of her face, her vision fuzzy and distorted. She tapped the pilot's shoulder and quickly noticed the piece of wreckage impaling his forehead. Suddenly, flames spewed through the broken windshield, throwing Black Maria backwards. She desperately pulled at the side door's handle as the flames consumed the cockpit, threatening to turn the downed helicopter into a balefire.

She banged on the windows and screamed for help, the side doors stuck shut.

"Inari..." Osamu muttered, watching Black Maria crying and screaming from inside the helicopter.

"Normally, I'd reject this outright. Let's go save her, Osamu." Inari said.

Osamu's eyes widened in surprise. "You mean it?"

"Yeah. Let's do it."

Osamu nodded. "All right. Come, Kagu! Help me out!"

"Right!" Kagutsuchi grunted.

"Very well then." Taeko said. "We're taking the fight to them! Shinju and I will cover you two! Go!"

The tides of battle turning in their favor, Taeko, Shinju, Osamu, and Kagutsuchi leaped out from the hall and landed on the tarmac below. There they were, a team of five staring down an army of hundreds, both sides fighting for their lives, their loved ones, their ideals. Taeko pulled out her black feather from her pocket while Shinju readied her finger guns.

Even Cyanide wasn't ready to bow out of the fight just yet. He crawled his way over to the hallway, a shrine maiden's bow and quiver lying beside him. His legs were crushed, but his arms still worked. If he couldn't be in the front lines along with his friends, he'd give them cover fire from above.

"That's a metric fuck ton of them to go..." Cyanide groaned, pulling an arrow out from the leather quiver.

"Don't push yourself too hard, Cyanide." Taeko said.

Cyanide chuckled. "Pushing myself is all I'm good at, boss. Osamu, Kagu, go ahead and make a break for Black Maria. We'll keep the exorcists off of you for as long as we can!"

Osamu gave Cyanide a thumbs up and a confident smile. "Thanks! Don't you die on us, Cyanide!

"Don't hold your breath, kid!" Cyanide responded.

"Let's go!" Taeko roared, splitting off from Osamu and Kagutsuchi with Shinju at her side.

The sounds of battle raged on as Shinju and Taeko charged towards the exorcists. Like a master gunslinger, Shinju pointed her fingers and killed multiple exorcists in just one shot, coating the runway with blood and bone. Taeko flourished her feather, summoning flocks of crows from inside the bodies of the exorcists. Between their two fighting styles, Taeko and Shinju were able to kill multiple people in very few moves, their biggest advantage against the crowd.

While the screams of rage and cries of death blared behind them, Osamu and Kagutsuchi were confronted by dozens more exorcists. Many of them were women, shrine maidens by the looks of it. They stood between them and the flaming helicopter Black Maria was trapped inside of. Black Maria's humanity became so much more apparent to Osamu as she screamed and cried for help, and not a single exorcist even looked back at her.

"Help!" Maria screamed, choking on the black smoke filling the helicopter.

(It's just like Inari...none of them are even bothering to help her. They're going to let her die...)

"What are you all doing?! That girl is going to die!" Kagutsuchi pleaded,

One of the shrine maidens clasped her hand and extended her palm forward. An icicle flew from her palm and into Kagutsuchi's chest, striking her in an instant. Osamu watched as Kagutsuchi fell to the ground, her expression frozen in shock and fear.

(Oh my god...)

There was no time for Osamu to panic or rage. The maidens were about to shoot him down as well. To protect them both, Inari leaped out of Osamu's body and attacked the shrine maidens, clawing two of them across their eyes and biting into the neck of one more.

"Inari!" Osamu yelled.

Inari weaved the kuji-in signs and clasped her hands, initiating more of her blood magic. The remaining shrine maidens stopped right in their tracks, their flesh and sinew enthralled to her.

"How dare you! To let a young girl stay in flaming wreckage and to strike down another god! You don't have the honor to be called shrine maidens!" Inari screamed.

Inari forced them to eat each other like cannibals who had lost all sense of humanity. Osamu had never seen such horrific thing, humans eating each other. He looked away, ignoring the sound of squirting blood and gargled screams and paying most of his attention to Kagutsuchi.

"You're still conscious! Kagu, look at me!" Osamu urged.

"Osamu! Pull it out!" Kagutsuchi cried.

"Are you sure?!"

Kagutsuchi nodded. "I can heal myself, just pull it out!"

"O-okay!"

At the same time, Inari hesitated to save Black Maria as the flames consuming the helicopter nearly reached her. Inari wanted to leave the exorcist that tried to kill her there. But the fox goddess thought of what Osamu, or even what Tenji would do, and rushed in to free Maria of the wreckage.

"Please help me!" Maria wept, her face black with soot.

"Don't worry, I'm going to get you out of here!" Inari said.

Maria cared not that it was Inari of all people that was helping her. She simply wanted to live, a feeling that Inari easily sympathized with. Inari kicked in the side door, then pried it open with her bare hands. She grabbed Black Maria's arm and yanked her out of the helicopter just as the whole thing was engulfed in a crackling fireball.

At the same time, Osamu had pulled the ice out of Osamu's chest, allowing her to heal the bloody cavity in her chest left behind.

Inari kissed Maria, giving her some of the blood that remained on her lips to heal her injuries and stabilize her. The poor girl was covered in burn marks and blood stained her right arm. Inari's kiss made the burn marks go away, along with most of the internal damage done to her from the crash.

"Why did you save me? I'm supposed to kill you." Maria wheezed, coughing smoke out of her throat.

"I don't ever want to see another child die, especially not over something so senseless." Inari answered.

"White Saint!" Maria grunted. You took him from me! You took him from me and he was all I had! Don't give me a reason to thank you when I should only hate you! You deserve to die!"

"I know, Maria. You can hate me all you want. I'd say it's justified." Inari encouraged. "Hate me with all of your might so you can be free of your grief. Even if we're enemies, Maria, I'm just glad I at least managed to save one child's life. Even if you kill me."

Inari smiled and hugged Maria, as if she were her own daughter. {"I can die happily knowing you're okay!"

Maria no longer had the glare of a child who only knew violence and servitude, but for once, she knew love. From all places, it came from an enemy rather than her masters.

"Inari...you really are kind. I never doubted you for a second, but now I know for sure." Kagutsuchi said.

Inari smiled. "Thanks, Kagutsuchi, but I learned from Osamu."

(So this is what's it's like to feels like...to find yourself in someone else...)

"Good job, Inari. I'm proud of you." Osamu said.

Inari nodded. "Right back at you!"

Cyanide kept his eyes on the people surrounding Taeko and Shinju. The crowd of exorcists was so dense that even if he didn't aim properly, his arrows were guaranteed to hit someone. He kept firing away, each arrows lodging itself into the throat or back of an exorcist. But something terrible stole his attention away from Taeko and Shinju. A detachment of maiden archers emerged from the airside gardens, aiming their bows skyward.

"Osamu!" Cyanide screamed. "Get down!"

Osamu spun around, but it was already too late. A cloudburst of arrows came raining down upon him, biting into his flesh like the fangs of a beast. Inari and Kagutsuchi rolled away from the barrage in time, watching in horror as Osamu fell to his knees, his chest, legs, and and neck pierced by nearly a dozen arrows.

"Osamu!" Inari screamed, running to his side.

There were so many arrow wounds Inari couldn't even count them. Osamu's eyes grew moist and teary as blood soaked through his clothes and the cold, unearthly chill of death took hold of his body. Kagutsuchi sprinted towards the maidens in rage, spewing forth a wall of flames from her mouth. The airside garden was set ablaze along with the shrine maidens, who rolled on the floor screaming as the flames consumed them.

Inari looked around at the corpses of the maidens, seeking one of the hearts. However, she made the maidens eat each other, almost right down to the bone. What was left of any of their hearts had already been bitten, and the blood lost.

"Someone...there has to be someone..." Inari cried.

Maria held Osamu's hand, genuinely concerned for the man who inspired Inari to save him. Osamu gripped Maria's hand as tight as he could, holding onto life itself.

(Oh my god...Oh my god...I'm...I'm really...)

"Osamu, just stay here, I'll go find a heart!" Inari wept.

Osamu grabbed Inari's arm, crying as he rapidly slipped away. "I'm...I'm not going to make it...I'll bleed out soon..."

"Shut up! I can fix this! I...somehow...I..."

Inari shut her eyes as the memories of that fateful day in the forest came back to her, when she lost the man she loved and the children she adored. It was happening all over again. She was losing the man she loved with all of her heart.

"Inari..." Osamu mumbled. "Do you remember what I told you? When we fought White Saint?"

(Yoko...you're probably going to be really mad at me, aren't you? But still...I have to do this.. Izanami, you can be a big cry baby, so I know you'll be sad.)

Inari recalled the moment very clearly. She knew exactly what he was going to say. "Osamu...no...don't do this to me...

"There's no time!" Osamu moaned. "Help Kagu, rescue Taeko, Shinju and Cyanide. In order to do to that...you need it...you need to take my heart."

"Osamu stop!"

"Take it now!"

Osamu caressed Inari's cheek with his bloodied hand, leaving scarlet smears on her face. His grip on Maria's hand weakened by the second. "I'm so glad I met you, Inari. Thank you for saving me. Don't regret this, all right? Just take my heart...and live on."

(Tsukiakari...and so many more...god, there's so many more people...I'm sorry...)

"Inari! There's more!" Maria warned. The final wave of exorcists and shrine maidens were storming the airport, charging right down the tarmac

(Inari Okami...from the moment we met eyes that day, with broken, colored glass raining down on us...I knew I met someone special. I knew I met someone who could help me find myself when I had grown so depressed. I'll remember our fights, your pancakes, and the night we both bawled our eyes out and bathed the dirt off of our souls. We were both wounded that day...our scars were the same. And now, one of us is about to be free. So, take my heart, Inari...it was yours from the very beginning.)

And so, history repeated itself. Osamu's grip on Maria's hand loosened, and he slipped away from this world.

"Hey! Stay with us!" Maria screamed, squeezing Osamu's limp hand.

Inari knew now that it wasn't just Osamu she had to protect, but Maria, and everyone who trusted her. Shinju, Taeko Cyanide, and Kagutsuchi. With no choice left, Inari mournfully made an incision in Osamu's chest and ripped out his motionless heart. She shut her tear-filled eyes, running her finger against the warm trail of Osamu's blood on her face...before sinking her fangs into the heart and devouring it.

Inari opened her eyes, her irises glowing like blood moons. "Maria...stay down…"