Chapter 7: Goro

Goro felt the weight and speed of all three tengu pressing him and grinding him against the concret. They had him by their talons and lifted him up to smash him down again. The cloak protected him from the impact, their claws slowly started to break through the fabric. Goro elongated his neck and chomped down on the center one’s shoulder and slammed its head with the one on the right. Their grip on him loosened and Goro was free enough to grab the last one by the neck. He squeezed it, but this one was stubborn, ready to die just to dig its claws into him. The other two were rousing and ready to grip him again, when Goro focused entirely on offense.

All his tentacles were pointed at the Tengu, he fired off every cosmic blasts he could produce and let them feel the full power of his magic. The bright sunlight around them dimmed as his lasers absorbed the light and darkened the sky for a single second. When Goro felt free he flew up and away from his pursuers to measure his distance from them.

One of them had been completely untouched by his lasers, while one of them was missing a leg and the stubborn one was just a set of legs with wings.

So they’re immortal, fun, Goro thought. He checked the damage to himself, but only noticed some rips in his cloak. It’ll heal overtime, but that is if I can stop these things here and now. Goro watched as the tengu moved closer to him with cation, now that had some idea of what he could do.

“Are you hurt?” Goro heard Trimy in the back of his head.

For now, but I can’t kill these things. Goro told him.

“Of course not,” Trimy said. “They are bound to an eternity of torment in the underworld.”

Then how do I stop them?

“Keep them preoccupied while I try to get Martria to help.”

He doesn’t like you, Goro reminded him. He looked down at the ground for a moment and saw the top half of the tengu piecing itself back together. Make it quick, he told Trimy.

“I know,” Trimy said, just as all thoughts went quiet, the tengu legs dashed toward Goro with a fast kick. Goro caught the leg between his arm and body, and grabbed the other leg by the ankle of its other talon as it snapped at his head with its claws.

Goro saw the other two flying close and let his tentacles grapple and restrain them. The tengu were now completely immobilized and all Goro had to do was wait for Trimy and Martria. But the longer Goro held onto them, the harder it became to keep them locked in place. The two full tengu were beginning to act erratic, bending their bodies at impossible angles just to break free.

One of them had succeeded in jerking its head up fast enough to get its mouth out from under the mask. Goro saw the bottom half of a burnt face and needle like teeth, as it reached and bit into one of his tentacles. It hurt, but he did not flinch. Goro used his last free tentacle to wrap it around that tengu’s forehead to pry its jaws open. But just as the mouth was beginning to lift, Goro felt a similarly sharp pain at his foot. It was the top half of the other tengu.

We’re forty feet up! Goro thought as he tried to shake the demon off, but that was enough of a distraction for the rest to twist free and attack him wildly. Goro felt every kick, headbutt, bite and slash from the tengu as they began to lower him back down to the ground.

If I had any of the other armaments this would be easy! Goro thought, attempting to fend them off with his fists and with what remaining tentacles he had left. The tengu snarled and growled at Goro with a rabid intencity, and he could feel the shallow cuts they were making grow deeper the longer he defended. And he knew that if he couldn’t break free soon, he’d die. And out of the smallest view between the demons beating him down, Goro saw Hanabi Ryu locked in combat with Izanami. He saw the grit in Hanabi Ryu’s teeth as she slashed at the goddess with her sword, unable to make an opening. Time slowed as he watched as they stood at a standstill. The goddess was making her sweat, and that made him angry.

“No one kills the Magical Girl but me!” He shouted, lifting his arm to cast a laser, but the tengu legs took its opportunity and severed the skin and bone from his arm and hand, but the spell kept charging anyway, his hand floating in place. “Idiots… You all may be dangerous immortal demons from the Underworld, but there’s a difference between you and me. ” He told the tengu, who stopped their attacks to listen. “I’m a monster, and monsters are far worse.”

Without the slightest feeling of shock or pain from his severed hand, Goro fired off one more blast of cosmic energy. The beam of dark blue light shot past the tengu and straight for Izanami’s head. She noticed and dodged it, of course, but she couldn’t dodge both the beam and Hanabi Ryu’s scarf at the same time. The goddess was mid-back flip, but instead of righting herself, Izanami was pulled down by her neck, the scarf wrapped in a knot there as Hanabi Ryu dragged her down to the forest below. A large dust cloud formed from the impact, and the tengu flinched as they watched their master take the dive while Goro took action.

He grabbed the tengu legs by both ankles with one hand and shape shifted his own leg into a tentacle like sword, severing the legs from its own weapons. Next was its upper body, Goro took the talons, cut it off from his other leg and diced it into pieces with the razor sharp claws. The remaining two tengu escaped his next attack as he got some space from them. Goro rejoined his arm to the floating hand and the two pieces fused and steamed together. Goro flexed the fingers and gave it one of the talons to dual wield.

“One,” he said, and the last two tengu flew back a few steps in fear, which was what Goro had hoped for. Their fear produced an invisible smoke that only Goro and monsters like him could see and inhaled it deeply. The damage that the tengu had dealt him had healed, and his cloak had regrown all of its tentacles. The sight of his mock invincibility filled Goro with strength too as the tengu trembled before him.

It has been some time since I felt this kind of power, Goro mused. The Magical Girl had stopped fearing me a long time ago. So to suddenly feel this kind of power must mean these things really are the worst type of creatures.

Goro wasted no time, he flew for the closest one, and just as it raised a leg for an ax-kick, Goro severed it too and made mincemeat of the demon like he did the last one.

“Two,” he said, turning in the direction of the final fleeing tengu, who had flown right into the hands of Martira. A portal had opened just above the tengu and it was pulled into the portal where Goro could hear the faint screams of the demon beyond it.

Thanks, Goro said in his head to Trimy.

“Thank nothing,” He heard Trimy snarl. “You owe me a favor and a half for what I had to give him to help.”

Sure, anything for you friend. Goro chuckled. The power of the tengu’s fear left him as Martria opened portals and grabbed the other tengu bits from the ground below. And that just leaves… Goro turned to the hill below him where trees rustled and moved as the battle between Hanabi Ryu and Izanami continued. Goro ignored them for a moment and turned to the crowds of people gathered at the station, scanning them for Kanna.

Maybe it was impossible, Goro thought.

“What’s impossible?” Trimy asked.

Nothing, Goro said, crossing his legs and sitting in the air to watch the spectacle below him resolve.

“You aren’t going to help her?” Trimy asked. And then a small portal over Goro’s shoulder appeared.

“Can I crush them both?” Martria asked as nicely as he could manage, his eye peering through the portal.

“Hold off on that,” Goro said. “I already helped her once, giving her that opening. If she wants my help again she can beg for it.” Goro looked at the crowd one more time. His eyesight was almost as great as Taka Omo’s, but even still, he saw no sign of Kanna. Goro wanted to complain, he wanted to smash something to release the frustration he had built up since Trimy told him about the escaped Underworlders. But he didn’t want Trimy to hear him think about Kanna. But the more he thought about it, the more the anger started to subside as he played with the tengu talons he still had. He used his magic to reshape them into a chakram. It was similar to the iron rings he threw with Kanna, but sharper and deadlier.

Goro started to turn his head to check the crowd one final time. But stopped himself as an explosion of red magic erupted from within the forest, with yellow lightning striking after it.

“I just hope she got out okay,” Goro whispered to himself, and waited for the magical girl and the goddess to reappear.