1
Bang!!
For a moment, I managed to hold off the bastard’s fist, but in the end I bent my sword downward and twisted it aside in one motion. His strength was so overwhelming that there was no way to keep resisting it.
"Haa... haa..."
I gasped for breath and checked the condition of my sword. I was worried because of that earlier clang-like sound.
The sword was in awful shape. It had only blocked one exchange, but every tooth where the fist had struck was gone, and the entire blade was visibly cracked.
I ground my teeth. How was I supposed to deal with some monster like that without a sword?
As I glared at the blade and clenched my jaw,
"Not bad."
the bastard’s voice suddenly came from behind me.
I jerked my head around and raised the blade, but it was already too late.
Thud!
His attack was a kick aimed at my abdomen.
So I couldn’t block it.
The force in his legs was absurd. One hit sent me flying a good thirty meters.
"Damn it..."
After tumbling across the ground, I planted a hand down and tried to get up while cursing. If I didn’t, that bastard would be on me in no time and I’d be dead.
"Geh?!"
When I put weight on my hand and arm, I slipped.
A sticky, slick liquid with a strange smell... no.
"..."
Not liquid. Solid. It was my guts, crushed into minced meat, my mashed brain, and my pulverized eye.
"... Hrk... blegh...!"
Nausea surged up.
Looking at colorful innards was one thing, but seeing pink, blood-drained human organs was enough to turn my stomach.
While I was retching like that, the bastard who had chased me down kicked me in the head.
The kick sent me flying into a wall, where I slammed hard.
Then I spat out the rest of the blood mixed with vomit.
After confirming that, the bastard rushed over and kicked me again.
Bang!
I twisted my waist to the side and barely dodged it. But the attack wasn’t over.
Thud!
"Kheh...!"
He used his other leg to slam hard into my lower abdomen.
"Cough... cough..."
Now there was a lot more blood than vomit coming up. I think blood was running pretty heavily from my nose too.
'So this is it. The act, and my life.'
An auditory hallucination rang in my head. The same voice as when I’d fought the Leech Devil last time.
The bastard launched another attack without giving me a second to breathe. Bang!! I barely dodged it.
'Why are you dodging? Weren’t you trying to die?'
Crash!
The next attack,
Thump!
and the one after that,
Bang!!!
I barely... barely dodged them.
'Was all that just a performance?'
And the more I dodged, the more it tormented my head.
I kept avoiding his attacks, and he seemed to be getting pretty pissed off too. By now he was using both feet and one hand at the same time.
I barely managed to evade them.
And the more I did, the louder it kept talking to me...
"Shut the hell up."
At my words, the bastard looked flustered, and the hallucination went silent like a disconnected phone.
"Yeah, I want to live. Happy now?"
I spat the words out in a burst of anger and grabbed his foot. Then I yanked him hard and knocked him off balance.
After that, I got up quickly and stomped down hard on his abdomen, all the while using the devil’s power to check what move he was about to make.
At first, it looked like he was only taking my hits. Then, after I’d been kicking him for about five minutes, I saw him grab my foot, trip me, and beat me to death using the exact same method I’d been using on him.
I hurriedly pulled my foot free and ran toward where my sword had fallen. The bastard hesitated for a moment when I yanked away, then immediately started running at me.
He caught up to me quickly and threw a punch at my head. Since it was a straightforward punch with no special trick to it, I simply turned my head and dodged it.
But his target wasn’t my head—it was my solar plexus. The moment I dodged the punch, he drove his other fist straight toward my chest. I caught it with both hands and barely blocked it.
But blocking it didn’t mean I stopped it completely. His strength was so ridiculous that my body still got sent flying backward.
Not bad. Better, even. That recoil had brought me closer to the sword.
Crash!
Of course, since I’d been thrown backward, I couldn’t land properly and ended up rolling across the ground anyway.
I lifted my head quickly. The bastard was coming—
Thud!
The moment I looked up, I saw his knee. I hurriedly raised both arms to block it, but even so, a massive shock rippled through my whole body.
"Ghk..."
I felt like my teeth were about to break. The smell of blood in my mouth was driving me insane.
So let’s end this fast.
I grabbed the sword lying right behind me and stood up. At the same time, I slipped to the left and successfully dodged the bastard’s attack as he rushed in.
Before I could even catch my breath, he controlled his recoil with sheer force and drove a fist packed with power straight at me.
Szzzzzt-
I blocked that fist with the sword held in reverse grip.
I couldn’t do anything about the shock it left behind. But the arm that had been scraped by the punch had its skin torn clean off.
Blood. Looking now, there was an enormous amount of blood flowing from the fist that had clashed with my sword earlier.
"...I can win."
The sword was already at its limit. One more block, maybe two, and it would break. Even if I attacked with it, it would probably shatter after at most five swings. So,
Bang!
the bastard kicked toward my abdomen. I knew it was coming, so I dodged it easily.
I needed to be ready to fight with a dagger, not a longsword.
His kick failed, and his body pitched forward out of balance.
I didn’t miss the chance and swung my sword at the back of his head.
Shhk!
The attack landed cleanly.
But.
Crack!
The sword broke too.
The shattered blade lodged itself right into the back of his neck, making the bleeding worse. I had expected it to break uselessly, but to think it would give me an unexpected advantage... I could only be grateful to the sword for putting me through all that trouble.
The Violence Fiend threw one arm back to pull the blade out. I knew what it was doing, but I deliberately let it.
Tap-
The bastard suddenly showed caution toward me as I rolled downward, and quickly set both arms in a ready position.
But it was already too late.
I carved a long diagonal line across his body. Then, without even taking a breath, I cut horizontally across his chest once, vertically down one shoulder once, vertically down the other shoulder once, horizontally across his abdomen once, and vertically again.
The short reach meant I took about three counterattacks, which was a pretty big flaw, but I’d landed far more hits than I’d taken, so it didn’t matter.
Before I knew it, my body was soaked in his blood. He kept attacking while bleeding, but he no longer had the same power as before.
The tide had finally turned in my favor.
"Kgh... KRAAAAH!!"
With death right in front of him, the bastard opened his mouth toward me. Was he trying to drink my blood or something?
Slash!
"As if."
I slashed deeply across his neck.
"... ... ....!"
He looked like he wanted to say something.
But unfortunately, his vocal cords had been cut, so he couldn’t say a thing.
All he could do was gasp for air.
Thud...
He dropped to his knees. He probably didn’t even have the strength to stand anymore.
I drove my sword into his stomach. Then I kicked his jaw hard from below.
That sent him toppling backward.
I stomped on every one of his joints once while he was down, then finally crushed and tore at his groin.
He was still wheezing. Good. A devil shouldn’t die here.
"You shouldn’t get to die easily."
I didn’t have any great feelings about Arai. But at the very least, I should repay him for making an opening to run from that old bastard.
"...Though, of course, I also just feel like shit."
When I finished speaking, I watched him bleed for a while. Then, when the warmth began leaving his organs,
Thud
I sat down on top of the corpse.
And started smoking a cigarette.
"Phew..."
As the smoke passed through my lungs, my head felt strangely clear, as if it were a lie.
"So that’s why Dad smoked."
A little laugh slipped out.
"..."
I smoked in silence for a while.
Then a thought suddenly came to me.
"...Shin Gongja. Do you really want to live?"
...
I don’t know.
...
"Then let’s just live until the point where we save Aki. ...We can think about the rest after that."
Wow, I’m a genius.
Tap, tap, tap.
While I was grinning to myself, I heard footsteps.
I hurriedly picked up a shard of the broken sword and got ready to fight, but the owner of the footsteps was Kishibe.
I was briefly startled, but then I remembered that earlier I’d felt that eerie sensation, and I could finally let out a sigh of relief.
After I relaxed and sat back down to smoke again, Kishibe looked at me like I was ridiculous, then said,
"Come here starting tomorrow."
And he tossed me a note.
...I thought this was a gym.
Then he turned and left.
"From now on, call me teacher."
Leaving that one last line behind.
"...What the hell is he talking about? Crazy old bastard."
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register