Hisoka stumbled, shock widening his eyes. Again?! Tamotsu materialized behind him like vengeful smoke.
"Your blood..." Tamotsu's voice was a low rasp, his silver eyes burning with unnatural light. "...it flickers. Like dying embers. Where is your rage? Your fear?"
Hisoka clutched his scarred face, a low growl escaping him. "Human? I shed that skin long ago. Only scraps remain... just enough to crave you." His twisted demon claw twitched violently. "But the Shadow Lord's will consumes all else."
A wild grin split Tamotsu's face. "Take me? Yes. I feel... alive. Let's play!"
WHOOSH! Hisoka lunged, a crimson blur. "Demon Slash: Bone Breaker!" Razor claws ripped through the ash-filled air.
Tamotsu didn't move.
HISS! Water threads surged, condensing into a swirling shield of ice mist. The deadly slashes vanished into the frigid vapor.
THUD. Earth threads pulsed beneath Tamotsu. The ground liquefied instantly into sucking, black mud.
"Grah—!" Hisoka sank, off-balance.
Tamotsu leapt. Not high. Impossibly high. Hovering, he looked down, a predator surveying prey. "Try this." He flicked his hand downward.
SCREEEE! Shards of dark metal – sharp as shattered void, cold as death – screamed from his palm.
Hisoka twisted desperately. THUNK! One shard impaled his thigh. "Damn you—!" He howled, pain and fury mingling. With a desperate heave, he plunged into the ash, vanishing down a hidden tunnel.
Tamotsu snorted. "Running? Tch." Without a heartbeat's hesitation, he plunged after him into the consuming darkness.
The acid-lava storm raged, a maelstrom of destruction... until Hayate descended like a wrathful hurricane.
"Winds of Tranquility!" Her voice cut through the chaos. Spinning, hands outstretched, she commanded the gales. The howling winds reversed. The tangled clouds unraveled. Acid rain still fell, heavy and stinging, but the madness died, leaving only scorched earth and devastation.
She landed lightly, silver hair whipping around her face. Her sharp eyes scanned the battlefield: jagged ice spikes, bubbling magma burns... but no Tamotsu. No Hisoka. A cold dread settled in her gut. "Boy..." she whispered, the wind carrying her words. "What fresh madness is this?"
Tamotsu dropped into a cavern. The air hung thick and stale. The only light came from sickly veins pulsing within the walls like diseased hearts. Silence.
Then... hundreds of eyes snapped open in the gloom.
Figures emerged. Some were near-human– gaunt faces etched with terror, clothes ragged, strange marks glowing faintly on their skin. Others were full demons – skin cracked like volcanic rock, limbs ending in jagged bone blades, drooling fangs glistening in the dim light. They stepped forward, a tightening circle of nightmare flesh.
A voice, dry and sibilant, hissed from the deepest shadows:
"Welcome... Combiner. The Lord Awaits."
Tamotsu's silver eyes narrowed to slits. A familiar, icy blue fire ignited in his chest, burning away the last vestiges of... something else. A cruel smile touched his lips. Finally. A real challenge.
Hisoka screamed. Not from the shard in his leg, but from what it did. The dark metal disintegrated into dust. And his flesh followed. Ash-gray decay crawled up his thigh like fast-acting rot, stealing feeling, stealing life. His voice cracked, raw with terror.
"What did you do to me?!"
Behind him, Tamotsu... changed. His shoulders straightened, posture shifting from predatory agility to ancient, terrible authority. His silver eyes darkened, glowing with an inner void. A voice, deep and layered with echoes of forgotten ages, rolled out: "Finally... back." He flexed his hands, examining them as if seeing them for the first time in eons. "How long has it been? Centuries?"
The half-human hybrids recoiled as one, their monstrous features stark:
Long black nails, sharp as daggers.
Mismatched eyes – one human, desperate; one demon, soulless.
Cracked violet runes pulsing along their necks like poisoned brands.
Tamotsu didn't even look at them. "Insects." He raised a single palm. "Sido 57: Burning Ashes."
White fire, hotter than a star's core, erupted from the cavern floor. Hybrids shrieked, flesh vaporizing—
—except for nine. They slammed clawed hands together, desperation fueling their power. "Demon-Style: Wall of Agony!" A horrific shield manifested – a barrier woven from twisted, screaming faces, blocking the cleansing flames.
A figure materialized atop a grotesque throne of fused bone – the Shadow Lord, cloaked in seething darkness that drank the light.
"You?" The Lord's voice boomed with disbelief. "But the Mask is shattered! The Eternal Pact forbids—"
Tamotsu's hand glowed, encased in jagged ice sharper than any diamond. "The Mark remains." He touched his chest where the icy blue fire raged. "You saw my face. You die."
He vanished. Reappeared behind the throne, a blade of condensed void energy already swinging towards the Lord's neck—
—as the nine hybrids lunged in perfect, desperate sync:
"Demon-Style: Void Claws!" Rending space itself
"Demon-Style: Blood Chains!" Living tethers of crimson energy
Tamotsu didn't flinch. "Sido 67: Omni-Sight." His eyes became fractured mirrors, reflecting a thousand angles at once.
He parried the Void Claws with an forearm suddenly armored in hardened magma.
Air solidified into razor-wind blades, slicing the Blood Chains apart.
His void-blade stabbed forward three times in an eyeblink, each strike piercing a hybrid's glowing violet rune. They collapsed, silenced.
"Enough !" The Shadow Lord roared. He swung his massive, blood-drenched sword. SCREECH! A wave of crimson energy sliced the air. Tamotsu blurred aside; the wave hit the cavern wall, exploding into deadly shrapnel.
The Lord slammed his sword point-first into the ground. Geysers of boiling blood eruptedbeneath Tamotsu's feet. Their blades clashed again and again, sparks flying like acid that burned holes where they landed. The Shadow Lord's sword visibly dimmed after each colossal blast.
Dark tendrils, dripping shadow, shot from the Lord's cloak towards Tamotsu's heart—
—Tamotsu's blade phased, becoming insubstantial, then solidified mid-swing, shearing through the Shadow Lord's neck like smoke.
The grotesque head tumbled. The darkness cloaking the body writhed and dissipated.
Only two hybrids remained, cowering: a boy, maybe eighteen, with broken horns, and a girl, nineteen, her face marred by tear-streaked scars.
Tamotsu looked at them, his ancient eyes
unreadable. "Surrender? Then forget." He placed a hand on each forehead. "Sido 36: Erase."
Their eyes glazed over, pure, empty white.
From the dissipating shadow where the Lord
fell, Tamotsu retrieved two things:
A porcelain mask: Left side weeping tears of blood, right side locked in a maniacal laugh.
A jagged obsidian key, humming with dark power.
He offered the key to the blank-eyed girl. His voice, still echoing with eternity, was flat. "Let's go."
He raised a hand towards the cavern ceiling. "Sido 36: Ascent Road." From his fingertips, solid shadows coalesced, forming a steep, impossible staircase that pierced the rock overhead.
As they climbed the shadow-steps, emerging back into the ravaged, rain-slicked world above...
...they found the Soul Wardens waiting.An impassable line of spectral guardians, their forms shimmering with restrained power, blocking their path.