{Authors note}
Seems like you guys want to see more of Sandra :D, Honestly I didn't plan for her to live the fight, but then I thought maybe otherwise after I started writing her part. But I wanted to check with all of you guys if you were up for it!
I can remember reading an SS fanfic where they introduced a bunch of OCs in the Forgotten Shore arc and not liking them one bit lol. So, I thought you guys might think the same if I added too much.
But I'll try my best. I can't cook in the kitchen, so I'll cook on the page.
Of course, if you guys wanna be heard so that I can hear your opinions and such. You need to comment so that I can understand and acknowledge them, So make sure to comment and who knows, you might influence the story for the better. :3
Also, just 2 more reviews and we get to have enough to show stars :>- You know that greed is one of the many things that fuel this flame to write!
I promise I'll make an extra 1k word chapter if we achieve this >:)
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Heaven Pierce Her [1]
The sand was painted blue. The blood of Kade's victims drenched him and his arena.
And now he was expecting the two sleepers, Sandra and Ayen, to have scavengers hot on their heels. He couldn't see the stout-faced tank, and Ike had just poofed in front of him for just a moment.
'Surprising that they're still alive, well, at least three of them...' He didn't know about the two girls, but Ike seemed to be a sleeper worth his weight in gold; teleportation was a fantastic aspect, and to do so without any preparation was excellent.
With a scavenger at his back, Kade decided to do the smart thing.
'I can't let the scavenger's group up!' Facing eight together was nearly impossible, but doing it against eleven was a death sentence; for now, he needed to get their numbers down.
He bolted from the sand, rushing at the two retreating sleepers. He left Ike behind, not out of cruelty, but trust. The caped sleeper could handle himself. If not, they were all screwed anyway.
Sandra, from the distance, quickly spotted Kade rushing to her, breathlessly yelling at him. "Kade!" The surrounding gale supported her burdened steps from heaving the distressed Ayen.
'How am I going to kill eight scavengers by myself?'
He couldn't; that was a matter of fact. But his mind processed under the chaos and clicked together with an idea.
"Sandra, Ayen, help Ike kill the bastards behind me!" Kade was going to switch up the board so that his weaker teammates could have an easier time. And maybe live.
'BYAKKO, GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME!' Kade roared internally; the spirit beast could hear it, being connected to his soul.
He didn't even have to repeat himself; suddenly the mythical tiger bolted past the scavengers, with savage-like speed, in a matter of moments arriving at Kade's side. The two other sleepers watched the brawler in amazement as he shot past them.
The horde of scavengers screeched in harmony; Kade could feel their intent to feast on his flesh from a mile away as if they were mentally picking apart his body to consume.
'Dumbass crabs, I'll eat you instead!' He was side by side with the apex predator, powered by the surge of [Battle Lust] and energy from unyielding Asura. The plan was simple: using Byakko's [Divine Outburst] to wipe out as many scavengers as he could.
But for that, he needed the emotions and ever-burning passion of an Asura to fuel it. Right now, despite all this, he didn't have the requirements to power such an attack.
Except for his flaw, [Battle Lust], a well of madness and insanity that had been lessening the more and more he fought. Still present in the back of his mind, its itching is growing weaker and weaker.
What if instead we tried to amplify the experience? Rather than chase it away. He needed fuel for the fire, and he had just the way to do so.
Mid-sprint, Kade forced himself to remember the moments that filled him with the deepest rage and bloodlust.
The memory of his father kicking him down and down again for losing his first cage match.
The experience of weakness, the laughing of the crowds as his opponent was forced to continue.
The sight of the corpses of his peers, ones who failed to survive their harsh environment.
The corpses of friends who hadn't survived. The ones who deserved better. The ones no one remembered.
Kade didn't push those memories away. He embraced them.
He poured gasoline on his mind.
Leaping onto Byakko's back. He reached into [Battle Lust].
And lit the match.
Kade's mind was set ablaze.
Rage shot through his veins, his mind clouded in complete chaos, his hands twitched, and his eyes were bloodshot. He wanted to tear it all down: the world that thought him weak, the sky that blocked his views of the heavens, the earth that sprouted his foes, and the fate that dared restrict his path.
The scavengers ahead screeched as they noticed him, but their cries were distant now. Meaningless.
Everything was to be torn apart.
"RAAAAGH!" Kade screamed aloud, the pitch-piercing reality above. His outburst scratched against his throat like knives, yet he continued. Burning past the pain to voice his fury.
He felt the hot, fiery blaze around his soul, and Byakko fed on his madness.
The mythical tiger burst into flames, flowing like a tide of endless hellfire, its glowing blue eyes shining through the combustion. And Byakko rocketed up above the scavengers.
They two shot up like stars in the air, the scavengers and sleepers for a brief moment taking their gaze off the battle and to the new source of light and heat above them.
Before the new sun crashed down.
The impact brought immense heat, the cratered sand melting into glass shards at the hellfire—a tidal wave of flames exploding outwards, the scavengers shrieking in pain as the scorching inferno flowed through them.
The world around him was dyed red, and the smell of cooked flesh filled his nostrils. Beside him, Byakko faltered. The great beast, spent and seared, dissolved into embers as he returned to Kade's soul. The flickering of the fire is the only sound on the battlefield.
Kade stood there, silent, the flames licking against his skin, the immense heat burning away at his flesh. The flames were cackling as they were consuming him. The spell whispered quietly in his dead ears.
[You have progressed your Aspect Legacy.]
[Stairway to Heaven]
[1] - Defeat a being of divinity.
[2]-Embrace the Asuras Passion
[3-7]?
[You have received a soul-bound memory! Embodied Wrath]
Kade did not flinch.
But his flaw hungered for a thirst for more, for the next battle, the next summit to shatter.
And the memory was subdued into existence.
Bleak grey rocks like the cliff of his soul sea manifested above him before bright orange energy pulsed through the shattered stone. Binding together into two powerful arms above his shoulder blades.
They were loose, still, and unmoving like the rest of him.
Until...
The sound of glass shattering echoed through the silence. The scavengers picked themselves up from the floor, horribly burnt and maimed, some of the beast's carapace melting as they stood.
The collected clicking of their mandibles sounded out as they slowly dragged their bodies toward the Asura.
The flame ate away at their bodies, as did his.
They were all burning from his madness.
Kade blurred from his spot; like a demon, he clawed his way to the closest scavenger. His four arms immediately crashed into the weakened beast, a fury of punches shattering the heated armor. The scavenger screeched in agony as he beat it into mush.
[You have slain the awakened beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
They surrounded him further, and Kade's dead face burst into exhilaration. [Vigilance] Gifting him more and more power the more his body was consumed by the flames. He cackled loudly as the charred crabs surrounded him.
What happened next could only be described as visceral. Kade danced between the attacks like a spirit of wrath. He would rip and tear into the scavenger's weakened armor, using their departed limbs as weapons to club their brethren.
The blue blood he shed boiled on the glass. The final remnants of the scavengers were torn bit by bit until they lay in a smoking pile under him.
Kade sat atop his throne of corpses, smoke curling from the dying flames that had tried to consume him.
He was still motionless, like a machine without a command.
All that was left was [Battle Lust] itching away at the emptiness.
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Sandra stared, as well as Ike and Ayen.
The three had miraculously slain the three scavengers left to them; it can be a close fight, a balancing act between life and death. They had only managed to live so far thanks to Ike's safeguarding.
As soon as he stepped into the mist, he would appear like a guardian angel, cutting, blocking, and pushing the two girls out of harm's way. Given the freedom of safety, she and Ayen dealt the damage.
Her hex-like flames weakened the beasts further, allowing her to more easily cut into their broken armor. And soon enough they fell.
But it didn't feel like a victory.
Grudge was dead, and Kade...
He was nowhere to be seen after he had suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs and then exploded into a fireball. Sandra still remembered the shockwave knocking the breath from her lungs, the way the air fled before the heat rolled in.
'What is he?' She wondered, gulping at the sight of manufactured glass that the sleeper had somehow managed to form; it didn't make sense. None of it did.
Yet she assumed he had victory; no carapace scavenger dared claw out of the wreckage. She could barely see through the lingering flames that had scattered from the explosion. And now it was only a devastated mess of black smoke.
Kade was nowhere to be seen.
'Did he sacrifice himself...' Her fingers clenched the hem of her leggings. Shame slowed her step as she walked to the aftermath. Sandra didn't expect anything like that out of the known criminal, and it pained her heart to see a fantastic warrior like him perish.
He could have gotten away on the back of his ewe, yet he fought for them and allowed them to see another day. The guilt pained her deeply.
"I'll see if there's a body..."
Ayen walked beside her, clinging tightly to Sandra's hand. The poor girl was still trembling, her body fragile, her steps uneven. She was barely fifteen, probably the youngest sleeper in the entire academy.
Yet the small girl had been sheltered all her life and somehow passed the trial.
Ike followed along, staring darkly at the sand before his feet. With tired eyes and a pained expression. The silent sleeper's steps grew heavy as he followed behind.
They arrived at the smoking mess in front of them, broken and melted remains of scavengers that surrounded it. The crunching of glass under their heels with each step closer.
The two girls, hand in hand, stared at the spire of smoke. clinging to her lashes.
Sandra sighed softly and took another cautious step. "It should be..."
Crack.
It was too fast, too sudden for Sandra to react--
Two open hands formed of rock and glowing orange energy shot out of the smoke. Suddenly shadowing over her face.
A surge of mist exploded beside her, and Ike appeared with his broadsword already swinging. Steel met stone with a deafening clash, cleaving one of the incoming limbs mid-air.
But Ayen...
"Eh?–" she murmured, eyes wide.
The second hand closed around her skull.
CRUNCH.
Viscera sprayed outward, painting the glass and smoke with her final breath.
[You have slain a dormant human: Ayen driver.]
Her body fell, bloody and headless. thumping deafly onto the shattered glass.
"AYEN!!!" Sandra screamed, the shock hitting her like a flashbang. Stunned, confused, and petrified. Sandra summoned a mighty gale around her. The wind exploding outwards like a rabid storm.
The black smoke retreated, blown away by the outburst.
Revealing Kade...
His body was broken, with spots of blackened flesh and chunks of skin hanging loose. His clothes were long gone, devoured by the heat. The glowing orange arms of fractured stone loomed behind him, steaming with fresh blood. And his eyes...
They were hollow.
Not mad with bloodlust. Just dead, like a glossy pupil shell of a corpse.
He stepped forward.
Slowly. Mechanically. Stiff and unnatural, like a puppet learning to walk—his hollow eyes not leaving hers once. Sandra flinched, stepping back as her legs trembled. The gale retreating with her. Not daring to use her daggers against the monster.
Ike slid in front of her, his broadsword gleaming in the sunlight. Fury painted his face, gripping the handle of the blade like a vice. Gritting his teeth, his body twitched.
Unsure whether to try and pacify the fellow sleeper or cut down the man who killed his classmate.
Ike took another slanted step, and Ike grimaced further. Raising the broadsword above, ready to cut him down.
But the blow never fell.
A shadow slipped from behind the throne of corpses.
In the blink of an eye, a short young man with lusterless black hair, dressed in ragged cloth, snuck from behind, drawing a shimmering azure blade. His calculated steps were somehow silent on the shattered glass.
Unnoticed by the puppeteer, Brawler.
CLANG-
The flat blade cracked against Kade's temple, the stone arms shuddered, and his head snapped sideways, the broken Asura crumbling down beside Ayen's remains.
Sandra and Ike watched with shock as the boy emerged from the shadows, rubbing his hands through his pitch-black hair, his eyes meeting theirs.
"Hello. Nice to meet you," he said softly. "Name's Sunless."
Then, without ceremony, he gave Kade a strong kick. The unconscious body jolting from the blow.
Sunless glanced at the ruined battlefield, as if trying to make sense of the nightmare. Then looked back at them.
"And... can someone please tell me what the fuck happened?"
[1] I think you can tell I've been listening to the ultrakill soundtrack when writing this chapter.