123. In the Noxious Noise
Emotion and memories surged through Kamo's mind as he landed back on the roof of a dilapidated house. He could no longer remember what he and his wife had been arguing over. All he remembered now was seeing the hem of his daughter Lucia's dress fly over the edge of the windowsill, then grabbing out for her too late as she went plummeting to her death.
Kamo's ability struck true, and expertly bounced the psynergy-dense Ballistiosphere back toward the Shinsengumi. Suzuki stood his ground, and the bullet exploded right on him in a cloud of moldy smoke.
She died because I lost my temper, Kamo reminded himself as he alighted on to a wide roof. Something no daughter should ever do.
As the rubble cleared, Kamo saw Suzuki standing on a roof on the other side of the street. He remained unscathed, fungus gun held high in one hand, with a powerful psynergy barrier supported by his other.
"A foolish plan," Suzuki said with a cocky smile. "Now, let's see if I've got things straight – you just used up your trump card, and I've yet to even show you my entire hand. Meanwhile, both the girls you've been desperately trying to protect are probably being eaten alive by my Mushroom People right now. Does that sound about right to you, foreigner?"
"I appreciate the endearing nickname, but you can just call me Kamo," he replied. "By the way, whenever you get a chance, check out your hand for me."
Suzuki snickered. "What's that supposed to be? A diversion?"
Kamo smiled cheekily at the Yamatophile. "Actually, it's my contingency plan."
With dubious eyes, Suzuki dropped the fungus bullet and glanced at his hand. On it glowed a red target.
"Bullseye." Kamo nocked another arrow. "Now, can you figure out what that does?"
"What the
hell?!" Suzuki clawed at the symbol, and even tried firing
psynergy at his own hand in order to destroy it. "How did you do
this?!"
"I still have a few cards left." Kamo wasted no time in firing additional arrows, which all converged in on Suzuki no matter how he tried to dodge. He screamed out in pain, but remained standing on shivering legs.
With a desperate heave, the Shinsengumi pulled out a fungus-covered blade from his robes with his targeted hand. He dropped it to the ground, then shot green fungal stalks out from his legs and held the blade firm, sharp side up. With a grunt, Suzuki threw his hand down on the blade, severing it cleanly from his arm. As he screamed in pain, more green fungal stalks sprouted back out from the wound, curving around the bloody blade and grafting it to the stump where his hand had once been.
Kamo's eyes widened. "What the hell?! You can regenerate too?"
"Stupid foreigner. Not quite," Suzuki grunted and gestured to a clump of roots that extended from the bottom of his robes into the ground. "I allowed my limbs to decompose so I could spread my spores through them and mutate them as I please. And with the power of my Rhizomorph, I can deliver nutrients and energy to my body from long–"
Suzuki was interrupted as Kamo dove across the gap between the two houses with two arrow-like blades in hand and swung them out like daggers. Suzuki blocked the melee strikes expertly with his fungus blade, then brought forth his gun at lightning speed and fired straight at Kamo's thigh. This time, rather than a bullet, a black whip emerged from the muzzle and wrapped itself around Kamo's leg.
"Smut!" Suzuki cheered, then pulled in Kamo's leg and kicked him where he was most bloodied.
If he gets even one of those spores in me, I'm finished! Screaming out in pain, Kamo grit his teeth and headbutted Suzuki in mad anger. The attacks between the two escalated, and arrows, spores, and psynergy sparked in the darkness.
A rumble sounded from the distance, soon accompanied by the screams of Hanayo and Yayoi. Kamo could sense more moldy psynergy pooling around the vicinity.
Kamo winced as the hard lichen on Suzuki's blade cut a slice of his flesh off. He's fighting me here, yet still has enough concentration to manipulate all that? How?!
Below, thick white mushroom stalks rose up out of the parched earth and blossomed into blue-and-purple umbrella caps. Within minutes, the entire avenue had turned into a pulsating bed of fungus. Intercellular communication sparked through synapses from Suzuki to his spore-spouting mushroom towers, finally reaching the army of fungal ghouls that were now chasing Hanayo and Yayoi down the street.
Poisoned locusts fell to the ground as Yayoi and Hanayo escaped the fumes emanating from the mob. From silk-clothed aristocrats to scraggly beggars, every type of citizen in Kyo was present in over a horde of decomposed corpses festering with fungus.
"Kamo!" Yayoi shouted up at the rooftop. "We keep killing them, but they just keep coming back!"
It was at this point that the colossal mushrooms began to release a stream of white puffy spores, slowly contaminating the air.
"Welcome to my world." Suzuki once again attacked Kamo's injured leg and knocked him down. "This whole capital is just food for me to devour."
Kamo tried to pull himself back up and used his free arm to deflect a volley of spores. That alone was a struggle, leaving him with no time left to block as Suzuki swung down his blade
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toward Kiriko.
The woman stumbled back, taking the brunt of Chiaki's blow but apparently feeling no pain. No blood exploded out from the girl's chest, and the cocky smirk remained on her face.
"You really are going to try and kill me." Kiriko's teeth gleamed. "Wow."
"What's going on here?" Chiaki asked. "Why didn't you get hurt?"
"Keep striking and you'll find out," Kiriko taunted.
Chiaki opened her palm and let rip a stream of psynergy blasts. All of them struck different points of Kiriko's body, but it seemed like she was somehow negating the damage. Even stranger was how it looked as if Kiriko's stomach was slowly getting larger.
Kiriko tapped her left foot on the ground. "Well? Is that all you're going to do?"
"I wanted to end this quickly, but it looks like I have no choice now," Chiaki said. "I'm sorry, Kiriko, but I'm going to remove you from this reality for a bit."
A stream of gamboge energy exploded from Chiaki's forehead and struck Kiriko's. The eerie girl's jaw dropped open, her eyes rolled back into her head, and finally, it seemed as if she had fallen into a coma.
Chiaki sheathed her sword. "By the time you wake up, Kyo should be ours again."
Satoka looked at her leader in awe. "What did you do to her?"
"Just what I said," Chiaki replied. "She's seeing a different reality right now. Something beyond us. I timed it to fade in a little bit, so she won't starve to death. Now come on, let's help the empress!"
With Kiriko's mind refocused, the bloody cord disappeared, leaving Azuka's body sprawled on the black pavement. Chiaki and Satoka knelt beside the woman and placed their hands
*************
on the thick bone spikes that pierced both his thighs, desperately trying to keep them from digging in any further.
This was Caleb's fourth attempt at trying to distract Harada Sanosuke long enough to let Kyokuran get in close enough to use her ability, and it was also his fourth failure. Since the Shinsengumi could shoot out bone from any angle, at any length, any number of times he wanted, it was proving to be a rather difficult task. This time, Caleb had leapt in too deeply, and the bone had pierced all the way through his ice shield to his flesh.
After using up all her energy, Ban had collapsed in a pool of her own blood, pierced in the stomach by one of Harada's bone javelins. Kyokuran currently danced around the Shinsengumi's new projectiles, trying to find a way inside.
He's too strong for me to take on my own... Caleb fought against Harada's beastly strength as the bones dug deeper into his flesh. Giving Kyokuran a chance to use her ability is the only hope I've got!
Harada strengthened his ossified aura, chuckling all the while. Behind him, the skewered stage was littered with piles of bone, fallen musical instruments, smoking motorcycles, and smatterings of everyone's blood. Harada's entire skeleton army had been demolished, but Caleb's side had also suffered greatly.
"You really think you can beat me, cube?" Harada laughed. "I've been killing to survive since I was just wee boy. Suffering and bloodshed is the name of my game."
Kyokuran deflected another bone pike with her dagger. "What are you trying to say?"
"I'm stronger than you!" Harada roared. "You think I get free range manipulation of my bones for free? Wrong! Every time I use my psynergy, every time I manipulate my bones and materialize another Kotsukyoku..." Harada's body quivered, and his raging psynergy shattered his black sunglasses, revealing two bloodshot, frantic eyes. "I'm overcome with agony!"
Seven poles of bone erupted from Harada's shoulders, giving Kyokuran just barely enough time to contort her lithe body and avoid being skewered. Although she wasn't pierced, she was still caught between the rigid bars and pinned to a wall.
Feeling despair sink in, Caleb thought about Cyril, and them Amyr. I've run for so long...but maybe it was because I always felt like I was alone. In the end I accepted that I'm a loser, thinking that was the right thing, the noble thing, even. But if I ever want to help someone again, I need to abandon that mindset. I need to be a hero, no matter how weak I may really be. Not for my own glory...but so Kyokuran and Ban can come out of this as the winners. I don't want them to have to go through what I did!
Caleb coated an ice blade in the most concentrated, low-temperature psynergy he could muster, allowing him to break through the thick femur bones that pierced his skin. Knowing that a single step with these stake-like objects in his thighs would cause immeasurable pain, he kept still and threw the blade straight toward Harada's neck.
A bone spike plunged out of the Shinsengumi's shoulder and shattered the blade before it ever hit its target – but Harada could tell something was up. "What the hell did you just do?!"
Caleb's victory rush
felt so good it almost blocked out all the pain. "So this really
is your own bone tissue, and not just a product of your psynergy.
Ever hear of something called dry ice?"
This time, Harada Sanosuke experienced his own tissue freezing. Caleb had tossed the blade in an attempt to lower the carbon dioxide molecules in the Shinsengumi's vicinity, and his efforts had paid off. As the chain molecular reaction continued, Harada frantically began dissipating his osteoshields.
"Now, Kyokuran!" Caleb screamed.
Frantically, Kyokuran yanked herself out from between the bone spears. She leapt to Harada's side, then, as she had done so many times before, stuck out her tongue and licked the back of Harada's neck, activating her ability.
Harada's body slumped, held up only by the numerous bone stalks that extended from his flesh. A panicked look ran across his face, and instantly, Caleb knew what had happened.
"Y-you cream-fried bitch!" Harada screamed. "You paralyzed me!"
Kyokuran's eyes were calm and trained as she slipped her dagger into the man's unprotected back. "Die."
We did it. Caleb breathed a sigh of relief. We–
"Oh, I don't think so!" Harada growled, and a strange mechanical whirring sounded from somewhere behind his head. "That's it! You're goop, all'a ya! I'm going to stuff you three into the fucking grave!"
Somehow, a blast of dense psynergy exploded out from the paralyzed man. Painfully thick psynergy slapped Caleb and Kyokuran in their faces, vaulting both of their bodies to the opposite side of the room as Harada summoned up new energy from an unknown source.
This newfound metapsynergy dissipated Kyokuran's mundane energy, freeing the Shinsengumi. With popped veins, reddened cheeks, and eyes drowning in pure power, he seemed completely hypnotized. And then, he chanted four words that sounded very familiar.
"Shin-Kei-Sui-Jyaku."
