Kojiro smelled the rising tension, power, beings unlike humans were stretching their wings. One was closely approaching, but he held no concern for it. Not because he knew it was not his time; no, because the pleasure of testing his blade was all so irresistible. Baghdad zipped past the twirling steel aiming for his neck. Deep strikes charged at his stomach, black tendrils slapped the whistling swipes.
"Sturdy one!" Kojiro shouted as he swung down with more aggression. Side stepping the strike, Baghdad coiled a dense clump of shadow ribbons around his right fist. It swiftly landed upon Kojiro's sternum launching him into a grove of trees.
"Location Raz," Baghdad demanded.
"Your two."
"Koga, how much longer?" Baghdad asked.
"About four minutes before the engine blows."
"Shit… This is why we don't fight, especially with northerners."
Kojiro leaped from Baghdad's two o'clock. An imaginary axis, seven Kojiro's existing in one instant, seven blades sprout from one, the peak of imaginary swordplay. Kojiro had mastered it. Baghdad's arm left his body as he tucked and rolled. Clenching his right shoulder, blood quickly leaked. The shadows wrapped him tighter in hands of black, eyes sprouted buzzing fingers, lips of night, a right arm nuked with fake bone burrowed into his coiled flesh. Wisps of wisdom slipped through Kojiro. Punching through Kojiro's sword, Baghdad knocked the sails away from Kojiro's growing ego. Gasping for air left him no time to prepare, a hurling gauntlet of lacquered bone shredded his chest. Specks of rib could be seen through fused cloth and muscle.
Le Suo stood overhead of a collapsed Dante. Dante stammered whilst getting up, a hand on the knee was little support, but all he could muster. Le Suo snapped his fingers, a cloudy mist cloaked the arena being set. Multiples walked in unison. Dante had to roar his mind awake, for the fade of consciousness was too strong for any normal resistance. His arms stretched to the ground, claws dragging against the dirt. Opening his jaw broke the skin between his cheeks, sparkling fangs hissed. Sprouting from where eyebrows once appeared, were two round green eyes. They hung above his ever so well known serpentine eyes. Hair hardened, sprawling down his back like a spiked tail. The four eyed creature stared down the illusive visages of Le Suo. With the whip of his arm the mist cleared, four large gashes streaked Le Suo's face. A cry of pain rang out.
Like a spear Dante hurdled his clawed hand, piercing the smoky clone. Another dud vanished from his hands. More fakes began to appear. Slow steps like a poorly choreographed dance. They charged, but a howl shook their forms into wisps in the wind. Sparks of lightning rained onto Dante's back, bouncing off his scales, a blizzard of flame exploded. A cascade of gnarly destruction ran amok. Dante's claws danced with the furry as Le Suo's smile perched itself in the sky.
"Daler, I will give you a chance of redemption. Unlike my beliefs, my followers ride with me. Zeroes assemble." The zeroes under Tak's eyes flickered, in seconds they turned from two to seven. Their projected light opened six doors. Le Suo entered from Tak's right most door. The third and fourth walked in, Zigarat to Razal's right. Koga, Baghdad, and Urnna arrived as well in that order. "Your killer was the hired "gun" of the Amevigt State, Oliver Doe, the Racing Hound, not just your leader, but your colleague. You betrayed them and the nation with your zealotrous behaviour. Tonight I shall finish what should've never been."
Bolts of lightning crashed, a figure clad in blue flame, a beast with four eyes and blazing scales. Through a cut in space-time entered Kojiro, his shattered ribs touching naked air. A mangled display of scarring cut through the still open doors made by Tak. Grease, holding onto the little consciousness he still had, staggered through the passage that the entity claiming to be Zigarat entered. Shrugging them off, Grease regrouped with the other three.
"Hmm, where's Musashi, ah nevermind, those two probably aren't capable enough to find a way here. Though, how come you're here? You should be dead, yet you've healed somewhat." Kojiro pondered.
"I used my original sin to rapidly heal the cuts, I then ran as fast as I could to catch up to that thing, luckily he paused to give me time to enter that damn door."
"Interesting, does he copy moves or something?"
"Escentially, but they're way more powerful."
"Interesting… Indeed, this will be fun."
Without taking the time to process what was said, Rad stationed himself in a position of defence. Whilst Kojiro and Dante led the attack. Grease stood by Rad's back lifting a barricade of crimson crosses. Dashing into the fray Kojiro's blade buzzed, humming with each stroke he took, fingers flew. Flailing limbs dropped to the ground as Tak stood motionless. Dante's barrage of friction induced heat melted Urnna's eyes, leaving his insides to boil and burn. Baghdad and Koga molded as one, an armored skeleton, covered in shadowy tentacles that slammed and wrestled. Sound lagged behind the cracking movements of the whip-like appendages. Yet Kojiro was not perturbed, his blade flowed with the same beauty as it always had. Cutting through the lines of inefficiency. A twister of slashes left quakes of snapping booms seconds after the movements were already complete. His blade never chipped or bent, a sail taking up the mightiest wind. Guided by hand unseen, Kojiro would dance around the immediate danger, and just as he always had, the head of his enemy fell to his feet.
"Now who is next?"
Le Suo waved a curtain of mist, but bolts of electricity exploded, the hand of illusion was pushed back. A dragon and its rider, the legend of the Dragoon. Lightning cloaked Kojiro's blade allowing him to block the appearance of Zigarat's sludge. Beams of sharpness nicked Kojiro, merely walking through the barbs of death. His blade swerved, in an instant he stood on top of Grease's head, Razal's hidden figure was chopped in half.
"Captain, they are too fast! Before I can set up a new mask, they cut them away. We're gonna die!" Le Suo showed his first glimpse of panic to Tak-Tak. Captain of the Zeroes closed his eyes, a silence only known to him rang in his mind.
"Win."
"How—
Sliding off, blood spurting into the damp air, Le Suo's face severed from the bridge of his broad nose.
"Another down," Kojiro said with a smile
"Zig, let heaven take my losses. We are called the Zeroes, for we possess nothing, we embody nothing. Our existence is meaningless."
"That's kinda meh, no?" Kojiro responded, his glee slowly fading as Zigarat's new entity encompassed the entirety of the cavern's innards. Heavenly light swallowed the corpses of the Zeroes.
"Some say light just as darkness is born from nothing, now you shall feel true emptiness, cur." A grotesque grin grew along Tak's face, eyes piercing with their ruby gleam. Six arms, twelve eyes of the twelve sacred animals across four heads with two mouths and six ears on each, the stomach opened like the jowls of a hippopotamus; a lower half with nine limbs of the Holy Trinity. Noses of a maiden lined the spine, the spooling hair of nostrils sewed together, creating a garment of nature woven over the new existence.
Spawning a guandao of light, the Numbers blew a hole through Kojiro's chest. The pressure shattering Grease's fence of crosses. Caving into the wall behind knocked flashing white light within his mind, his body dropping to the floor. Dante facing pertinent danger forced his body to evolve even further, elongating, scales bloomed through his skin, blue blood leaked from their piercing pressure. A flash of hell-fire erupted, beaconing the sky with a light of pure panic, a radiation that could kill them all. Flying through parted clouds was an azure dragon tangled with a galloping demi-god. The land shook as the mountain eroded in shaky explosiveness, parting in pies, sliding into five molten pieces.
Rad rushed towards Tak, right arm cocked back, with a twist of the hips his knuckles pressed deeply against Tak's jaw. Spitting, Tak reciprocated the aggression, launching a body blow to a right hook. Wincing, Tak could feel the dislocation of his wrists. This fucker is hard as iron, Tak-Tak thought. Nonetheless he caved not in, rather he continued, cracking knuckle with jaw. Rad wasn't so slow that he chose to simply eat the retaliation. Both men swung wildly, haymakers wooshed past each other, some luckily landing. Throbbing plagued their temples, puffy redness swirled across the four corners of their faces. Rad lazily gave a front kick taking Tak slowly to the ground. Coughing, Tak sluggishly stood up, his knuckles bloodied, wrists swollen and blue. He could barely see in front yet he never let his arms drop. Rad easily punched through the feeble sticks held up as walls.
"You're strong, Daler," Tak murmured. "Indeed, pests like you need to be cleaned from our ideal world."
"I can see it clearly now. You're a simple lunatic. Rather than what I originally came here for, I can only see you as a monster and thus must complete an act that sickens me more than you know."
"Haha, laughable, Daler we both know you care not for life. Selfishness. You hold the sins of a hero, yet you display hypocrisy. That can only make you a villain."
Both men slouched, heavy breaths carried them, wobbly legs stammered towards one another. Calm passion seized between them, Rad's skin clammed with a blackened ivory. Sparks of pure lightning trailed along his arms. The scent of soap flowers wafted the dingy den, clearing the dreary.
"Daler, our bout shall come to its end, with my final gambit your soul will enter Judecca. Numbers Divination, ninth set: Layered Summit of the Three Realms King. "