CH. 114 - Unstoppable Force of Death
As the barrage of punches continues, the prisoner quickly forms spikes in his hand and launches them at Shiori in an attempt to stop her. Two miss but one hits her shoulder, causing her to stumble back and ending the barrage. The prisoner drops down with a heavy thud before noticing Chizuru running away. As they run, Touma and Haru catch up quickly.
“Chizuru, what’s going on??” Haru asks quickly.
“He wants to kill me first. I’m the weakest one here. If I run away, maybe it’ll give the others time to escape.” Chizuru says. Touma then quickly picks her up in his arms as they run.
“Right, okay, yeah. Let’s do it.” Haru says, obviously terrified but trying to help his friend. The prisoner immediately gives chase to them, quickly gaining on them. Shiori then jets into the air with her black wings from her back with Hikigaya in her hands. She flips through the air with intense speed before launching Hikigaya down like a missile straight for the prisoner. The prisoner turns around in the moment before Hikigaya slams into him, smashing into the ground. Hikigaya quickly stands above the prisoner, slamming his foot down against his left wrist before covering his fists with sharp, hard bone. He begins punching the prisoner across the face back and forth.
“Leave. My. Friends. Alone!-”
With snapping speed, with his right hand, the prisoner shoots a spike out at Hikigaya’s face. The spike is fast and almost stabs Hikigaya right in his face but he leans back just in time, narrowly avoiding it so closely that it cuts along his cheek and the bridge of his nose as it shoots up. At that moment, the prisoner grabs Hikigaya by the face and stands up quickly, preparing to slam Hikigaya into the ground, but before he can, Shiori kicks him in the face, causing him to let go of Hikigaya and stumble back. Both Shiori and Hikigaya pant for a moment, trying to catch their breath.
‘Back then I couldn’t protect my sister…’ Hikigaya thinks with his head down.
‘Back then I couldn’t save Amber…’ Shiori does the same.
‘But this time…’ They think at the same time before getting sharp looks of determination. “This time we will save her, together!”
They shout as the prisoner looks up at the group running and quickly chases them, ignoring Shiori and Hikigaya. Before he can get too far, Hikigaya blitzes past him and slams his foot into the ground next to the prisoner. He pulls his arm back before driving a heavy punch into the stomach of the prisoner. Once again, blood pours from his mouth as he stumbles back, holding his body. He looks up to see Shiori flying in the air, lifting a large tree above him before driving it straight down upon his head and into the ground. In a moment, a large spike drives straight up and through the tree, shattering it to pieces. Shiori uses her wing to block the debris as Hikigaya blocks with his arms. The prisoner grunts as his injuries slowly begin piling up. He growls as he forms 8 rail spikes between his fingers before blasting them all at Hikigaya who charges him.
Using his fists, he punches most of them away, but one stabs into his right leg while the other stabs into his left shoulder. Without any hesitation, though, he follows through with a bone-covered punch across his face. The prisoner’s ears ring from the attack, but given no time to think, Hikigaya drives another punch into his face back up. The prisoner coughs for a moment before lifting his arm back with a spike in hand, preparing to impale Hikigaya with it, but before he can, Shiori wraps her energy whip around his wrist, stopping him. With wide eyes, he looks back only to receive a swift kick across the face and back down as Shiori dashes by and slides across the ground. As the prisoner is rattled by the kick, Hikigaya dashes behind him and wraps his arms tightly around his waist. He lifts him into the air before shouting.
“Now, Shiori!”
Like before, Shiori lifts her arms into the air before shouting and swinging them down as lightning strikes down upon both of them. With Hikigaya holding the prisoner up, the brunt of the bolt blasts into the prisoner. He grunts in pain as the energy burns him before it stops. Without pause, Hikigaya throws the prisoner back, suplexing him into the ground on his head. The prisoner quickly tries to get to his feet as Hikigaya quickly follows up with another heavy punch to the man’s face.
The prisoner narrowly avoids the punch, leaning to the side before dashing in close and slamming his elbow into Hikigaya’s face. Blood spurts from his nose as the prisoner grabs onto his hair and slams his fist into Hikigaya’s face repeatedly a few times before turning and throwing Hikigaya over his shoulder. Midair, Hikigaya twists his lower body around and lands on his feet before shouting and throwing the prisoner over. As the prisoner flies back, using her black goop like wings, Shiori forms a large ball and slams it down upon him, smashing him into the ground. Chizuru and the others continue to run, hearing the battle going on behind them, they eventually make it behind a building for cover.
“Chizuru, are you okay?” Touma asks with a concerned tone as Chizuru holds her chest, wheezing. She lifts her hand while nodding, motioning to him that she’s okay.
“I won’t.. Be any more trouble.. Than I already am..” Chizuru says with a determined look as she struggles to breathe. Touma gets a concerned look but doesn’t say anything else. Hearing the commotion suddenly stop after Shiori’s smash attack, Haru peaks his head out from around the corner, breathing heavily and sweating.
“What’s going on?” Alice asks.
“I don’t know. All I see is Shiori and Hikigaya standing but not the guy.” Haru says. They smile with hope and a bit of relief in their eyes.
“Really? That means it's over, right?” Alice asks again. Haru makes a strained smile.
“I think so.” he says. Chizuru sighs, falling into Touma’s arms in relief. Alice gets up quickly and steps out from behind the building.
“Yeah! Fullsky and Watchdog win again!” She cheers, but Shiori and Hikigaya don’t remove their gaze from where the prisoner lays in the small crater. They pant, bloody and bruised.
“You think the others got away?” Shiori asks.
“I don’t know. They can’t go too far. We don’t know if there are others and if he puts space between us…” Hikigaya responds. They stand in silence for a moment before Hikigaya speaks again. “Those spikes… they’re making it hard for me to regenerate.” He says.
“Yeah.. it’s like my powers are struggling just to get through them.” Shiori responds. When nothing else happens, Hikigaya speaks up one more time.
“Should we just..?” he asks softly. Shiori sighs subtly before answering.
“Yeah. He’s not gonna stop unless we stop him. And I don’t know how much more I can take-” she says as she goes to take a step. The moment she moves even the slightest bit, she flinches as a spike shoots right at her face, but it never connects. Hikigaya moved his hand right in front of her, getting impaled by the spike through his palm. Shiori’s eyes widen when she sees Hikigaya start falling back, two other spikes impaling his chest and side. He hits the ground with a thud as Shiori looks at him in shock.
“Hikigay-” she says before being backhanded in the chest and sent smashing into a nearby building. Hikigaya twitches with wide eyes at the sight before looking up only to be met by the prisoner slamming his fist into his face. He slams his heavy fists and hard knuckles into Hikigaya’s face repeatedly, over and over, doing all he can to beat him to death. Haru’s eyes grow wide as he quickly grabs Alice and yanks her back behind the cover of the building.
The sound of Hikigaya’s nose breaking can be heard as he weakly lifts his hand and shoots a blood spike from his palm, impaling the prisoner’s shoulder. He pauses for a moment before shattering the spike, then stomping on his face. The prisoner then lifts Hikigaya by the neck before launching him backwards into the building the others are hiding behind. They cover their heads as debris collapses around them before seeing Hikigaya tumbling across the ground behind them. The prisoner stares in their direction for a moment, breathing heavily as he stands there.
“Taking too long… too much effort…” he says before stepping their way. From behind, Shiori comes flying out with her sword in hand and slashes at him, but he quickly sidesteps to avoid it. She doesn’t hesitate, though, as she spins and slashes his stomach, spilling his blood. She doesn’t let up and brings the blade up, slashing along his chest before pulling the blade back and thrusting it forward, but the prisoner dodges and grabs the blade by the back of it before flexing hard and shattering it in two. Shiori is stunned for a moment, giving him a chance to slam his big fist into her face.
She stumbles back as blood spills from the corner of her mouth before spinning sharply and firing a lightning bolt from her palm at him, but he dodges again and grabs her wrist. Instantly, he swings his elbow back, hitting her in the face before he turns and runs a rail spike into her leg. She flinches from the pain as the prisoner quickly punches her across the face a couple times. As she falls back from the second strike, he quickly grabs her head and slams his knee into her nose. Blood flies from her face as she falls back. The prisoner then lifts his hand with a spike in his grasp and swings it down at her chest. Shiori quickly focuses and catches his fist, stopping him. She struggles for a moment before the prisoner punches her across her face again, before quickly backhanding her in the opposite direction, sending her tumbling across the ground.
The prisoner grunts before turning to the others and raising his fist. He then slams it down into the ground, sending out tremendous force in their direction that causes the already frail building to shake and rattle before collapsing over them. They all look up with wide eyes as the small building collapses. Hiding in a canopy area a bit away, the class and Samuel watch with terror on their faces.
“Kids!” Samuel screams, unable to do anything more. Touma quickly covers the others with his body in an attempt to shield them. The small building falls upon them, burying them in the rubble. The prisoner, without hesitation and impatiently, stomps towards the broken down building. He huffs and grunts as blood runs down his face and from his mouth and nose, burns and bruises covering his body. Haru sits up from the rubble, coughing and groaning, bleeding a bit from his head. He hears the crunching and crushing of debris behind him as he quickly turns to see the prisoner above him. He stares with terrified eyes as the prisoner grabs his arm. Haru shouts in pain as his bones crack before being tossed to the side, the prisoner never breaking his intense gaze from the location of Chizuru.
He takes another step, but suddenly Shiori jumps on his back, wrapping her arm around his neck tightly and driving a knife of her making into his chest. He grunts but without paying any attention to the attack, he quickly elbows Shiori in the face, causing her grip to loosen for only a moment. He quickly grabs her hair and slams her onto the ground in front of him. He then grabs her by the neck and lifts her up in front of him. He delivers two intense punches directly to her face in quick succession before Shiori, half consciously, raises her open hand and points her palm at the prisoner’s face. An explosion bursts from her hand as a smoke cloud surrounds the prisoner’s face. In pain, he drops Shiori. She falls to the ground with a pained look when suddenly the prisoner’s hand reaches through the smoke and grabs her by the side of her head. He then throws her over, tossing her across the ground. As they struggle, Alice gets up with a groan, as does Touma. Bleeding from his head, he speaks to Alice.
“Go, run.” He says with desperate eyes. Before Alice can react to his words, the prisoner stands above them. Just like with Haru, he tosses Alice to the side, backhanding her against her side. She tumbles across the ground, sliding to a stop as she holds her stomach, gasping for air in pain. Touma looks up with a stressed look as the prisoner lifts his arm above his head. He swings it down at them with intense strength, but it’s stopped. Touma grunts and struggles upon catching the attack. Touma strains on one knee as he pushes back against the prisoner. Chizuru looks up at him as tears begin to form in her eyes.
“Touma… no, stop… not for me…” she whimpers. Touma doesn’t yield as he grunts and pushes harder.
“leave... her... alone!” he shouts before throwing him back. The prisoner stumbles a step as Touma screams, slamming his fist into the prisoner’s face a couple times before pulling his right arm back, shouting, ready to drive the heaviest punch he could muster but before he can, the prisoner swings his arm around harder than before and slams it into Touma’s side, causing him to go flying through the air and smashing into a different building a little ways away. Watching this, the class stares with horrified eyes. Lucy and Ryuji, without thinking, rush to his side with scared and worried looks. Through the broken glass and wood, Touma lays in a pile of destroyed debris. He chokes as blood spills from the side of his mouth, his eyes wide as he struggles to breathe, hands shaking.
“Touma! Touma, breathe! Breathe!” Lucy shouts, panicked. Touma clenches his fists and convulses a bit before closing his eyes tightly and coughing up blood. He coughs hard for a moment before being able to breathe again.
“You’re okay, you’re okay.” Ryuji says with a panicked voice as he looks back. The prisoner stares down at Chizuru. She looks at him, but this time with a different look. She does not seem afraid, at least not of him.
“Please stop hurting them. Take my life, just don’t take theirs.” Chizuru begs softly as the prisoner stares at her.
“Life doesn’t possess value. Only death has worth.” He says before forming a spike in his hand and lifting it over his head aimed at her. “Your life doesn’t matter, and neither does theirs. So I will take their lives after yours.” He says coldly. Her eyes widen as the prisoner swings the spike down, but before he can impale her, a spike jets towards them and stabs through his side, causing him to stagger. Chizuru looks back to see Hikigaya standing up, having pulled the spike out of his chest and launched it at the prisoner.
“Chizuru, move!” He shouts before charging forward. The prisoner ignores the spike in his side and swings down, trying to strike Chizuru as she scrambles over, trying to get out of the way as quickly as she can. Before the prisoner can do anything, Hikigaya slams himself into him and throws them both to the ground. Hikigaya gets on top and starts punching the prisoner across the face a few times before he slams his palm into Hikigaya’s chest and forges a spike straight through him. Hikigaya staggers as he steps back before shooting out a bone spike through the ground from his leg. The thin spikes race forward, and one impales the prisoner on his other side, causing him to grunt in pain before shattering the bone with his fist. They pant for a moment, exhausted, as they stare each other down. They both then charge forward and slam their fists into each other's faces.
They fall back, but the prisoner catches himself with good footing and swings his arm forward into Hikigaya’s stomach with devastating force before quickly following up with a heavy blow across the face. He then grabs Hikigaya’s throat and pulls his head back before slamming his own into Hikigaya’s nose. As he falls back, Hikigaya growls before latching onto the prisoner’s throat with his own grasp. They struggle for a moment, trying to achieve the upper hand against the other when Hikigaya forms two more arms that slam against the prisoner’s head on both sides. This causes the prisoner to grit his teeth as Hikigaya begins to try to crush the man’s head. In that moment, a blade comes stabbing through the prisoner’s chest as his eyes grow wide. Shiori runs her blade deep through his body, forcing him to not move.
“You don’t have to die here..” Hikigaya growls.
“But you’re not leaving us much choice…” Shiori grunts.
“Death is all that matters.. my life is no different..” the prisoner says back, coughing up some blood. They are at a standstill for a moment when the prisoner grunts and pulls his left arm back, elbowing Shiori in the head. In the split second of a loosened sword grip and Hikigaya’s worry for Shiori, the prisoner grabs hold of Hikigaya’s shoulders and pulls him in close with intense strength, driving the sword through Hikigaya’s chest as well. His eyes grow wide as Shiori screams his name.
“HIKIGAYA!”
The prisoner shoves Hikigaya away from him. Hikigaya stumbles back, shocked by the piercing wound through his chest, before being punched across the face. The attack doesn’t stop though as the prisoner then quickly grabs the back of his neck and drives another spike straight into Hikigaya’s stomach with extreme force. Hikigaya’s face shows intense shock as blood pours from his mouth. The prisoner lets go of the spike, leaving it in his body, before kicking Hikigaya away hard, sending him flying across the dirt. Less than a second after, the blade is pulled out, then run through the prisoner’s chest again, then immediately pulled back. Shiori screams as she lifts her blade over her head, an orange hue coating it.
“Crashing-”
She yells before the prisoner turns and slams his fist across her face, interrupting the attack. The prisoner then slams his palm into Shiori’s chest, hitting her with intense force and sending her sliding back, but this time Shiori stays standing. She stands a distance from him with her head lowered as blood drips from her mouth.
“Why..?” she mumbles. The prisoner grunts a little as he slowly leans forward, obviously feeling the pain from his piling injuries. “Why.? My life was good… My life was finally becoming normal..! This trip was perfect, everything was perfect then you showed up! Why?!” she screams as tears fall from her bruised cheeks. The prisoner looks up at her with a plain look.
“You’re taking this way too personally.” He says before standing up, facing her. “My name is Ben. And I have no respect for the strong.” He says with a pained voice before suddenly launching a rail spike at her. Shiori stares enraged at him as she forms a stone wall from the ground in front of her to stop the spike. As soon as it hits, the wall rushes forward towards Ben, the prisoner. He then slams his fist into it, destroying it, before looking up to see Shiori in the air. She extends a punch down, slamming it across his face. He stomps back as blood flies from his mouth and Shiori races past him. She turns and slams her fist into his face again before quickly wrapping her tail around his neck and slamming his head into the ground. Ben grunts as he gets up, only for Shiori to lift her leg above him and slam it down with intense force. Ben dives out of the way as the ground it totally crushed around her stomp.
Ben then forms a long bat length spike and swings it back, slamming it across her face. Shiori hits the ground but quickly flips to her feet. She looks up but barely able to see through her blurred vision and beaten eye, she simply acts on instinct and rushes forward. She thrusts her palm forward, ejecting a sonic thrust, but misses as Ben avoids the attack. He then lifts the long spike up and stabs it down at her back, but using her wings as a shield, it doesn’t stab her, but the force still slams her into the ground. She pushes herself up only to be kicked in the stomach before being kicked across the face and sent tumbling back. She hits the ground, but as she lifts herself up with her exhausted body, she quickly forms two stone walls from the ground and slams them into Ben. He grits his teeth in pain as the walls crumble around him. Shiori pants as she rushes forward, her body slowly giving out as damage accumulates. Stunned, Shiori is able to strike Ben across the face, then drives a heavy blow to his side. He keels over a bit, but as Shiori tries to continue her assault, Ben grabs onto her left wrist before quickly snapping her arm. Shiori screams in pain before gritting her teeth.
“Sakura Bulb!” she shouts, driving her right fist into the man’s stomach, bursting the pink energy into his body. Without letting go of her broken arm, he stumbles back a step, blood pouring from his mouth once again. Shiori pulls her right arm back, now bruised and broken as well. Suddenly, the prisoner grabs her other arm and yanks her towards him, slamming his head into her face. Blood gushes from her nose as her head falls back, losing consciousness. Ben lets go of her wrists, letting her fall backwards before grabbing her by the neck and lifting her into the air.
“This struggle for your life is pointless.” He says with a damaged and cracked voice before forming a long spike in his hand. He pulls it back and aims it at her chest. “Your body on the pile won’t mean any more than the others.” He speaks one last time before thrusting the spike down at her chest.