Ash felt the hate rise from his heart to every part of his body. No one, not a Kraegan or even the Archangel himself, was allowed to hurt Lita. It made him angrier because it was her own father doing it to her. He had always abused her since she was a kid, worse now that she was grown. Her father was once a sought-after winning lawyer, but he was a crooked one, making his money by taking bribes or helping clients get off on cases they should have been punished for.
He was eventually caught and disbarred immediately. He had money saved in secret, but he took his frustrations out on Lita and her mom. Her mom left him, leaving Lita to take the brunt of his fury. Issac and Amelia tried to call CPS on him many times, but because of his knowledge of cheating the system and the few connections he had, he never faced any legal action or anything that would stick.
Half the reasons Lita has tattoos now are that they cover her scars from the beatings. The big thigh tattoo on her right leg covered the cuts she made on herself from being depressed and near suicidal, which led to her hitting Ash that day; she thought he was hanging himself because she knew exactly how he was feeling.
Ash tightened his fist to the point of his finger nails digging into his palms, breaking the surface of his skin just enough to let the faintest of bleeding come out.
"Don't worry about it, really. I'm used to it. Besides, just until this year's over and I'll be eighteen and free of him."
"That's not enough, though!" Ash said with pain in his voice. "He's been doing this for a decade now. He's the reason your mom left. He's the reason you're always working multiple jobs to feed his vices because he blew all his money on his hedonistic lifestyle. He's the reason Issac nearly got an arrest warrant put on him when he tried to take you away. If anyone deserves to die, it's your dad!"
Lita didn't want to hear it. She knew it was the same outcome as always, but it wouldn't change; nothing would change in her situation, least not the normal way.
Ash could still hear that voice telling him to get his revenge for her. Now he wasn't ignoring it; he was embracing it. He stomped his way to his keys and spare jacket, ready to head out before Lita yelled for him.
"Ash, don't you dare! If you hurt him, I'll never forgive you. He's my only family left, now that Daredevil's gone, I don't have anyone else."
Those words wounded Ash; it wasn't intentional, but he felt it nonetheless.
"You still have me." He whispered to himself before leaving in a fury.
He angrily started the bike, waking Daredevil so suddenly that it even surprised him.
"We're leaving now! Take us back to the zone. I need to kill some Kraegans before I do something I'll regret later."
Daredevil didn't question his request; he could feel that Ash was troubled. Instead, he obeyed and rode off back to the sealed-off zone. It was a faster approach now that Daredevil had been upgraded from the last encounter. The two blasted through the barrier instead of going over it like before. Ash realized he forgot the battle axe at home; the system, however, materialized it in his hand when he thought of it. The status screen notified him that any weapon purchased by the system would automatically be delivered to the user with a single thought command, and could even be stored in a personal storage space.
Ash transformed his head into the pumpkin form, and the blades of Gwar were engulfed in flame, along with Daredevil transforming. They roared the engine loud as a dinner bell for every Kraegan to hear from miles away. The act worked, every one of them charged in Ash's direction, Ash howled in fury as he charged at them, chopping off their heads at full speed. Every neck and collar on them shattering and slicing, the smell of seared flesh filling the air, the zone had more Kraegans than the Revhound Corps realized.
To Ash, this was perfect; it was a meal to satisfy his hunger and a way to release his hatred for Lita's dad.
"Aaaaaaargh!!!" He shouted as he continued his carnage. He had slain over fifty Kraegans and counting. None of them is smart enough to stop coming his way. Driven only by hunger for the part of his body that was still human. More and more came, and each one died on arrival. Every Kraegan he killed, he imagined them as Lita's dad, every bruise and cut on her he remembered just adding more to his painful hate.
The last Kraegan to come looked like a Berserker from its build. Ash rammed it with Daredevil's front tire before jumping off and continuing to slam the axe's blades into its body until he was hitting torn chunks of flesh and bone all the way to the asphalt. Ash stopped to drop the axe and proceeded to rip Kraegan's head off with his bare hands, then slam it to the ground. Shouting with everything in his twisted voice and heart to the sky, not caring who could hear him at this point, just needing to let it out of his body.
"WHO ELSE WANTS SOME!!!!"
Ash dropped to his knees, pounding his fists to the ground repeatedly, regardless of the damage to his knuckles. Daredevil made his way in front of Ash, neighing with the engine to tell him to stop. Ash did, his hands healing. He looked up at the gas tank, rubbing his hands on it as he calmed down.
"I'm sorry, boy. I can't take it anymore." Ash is referring to Lita being hurt. He didn't want that for her anymore. She deserved better than to be a tool for her dad. If she dared to leave him and not be stuck in her Stockholm Syndrome, she would be happier and free.
"Let's go home. I'll go apologize…" Ash didn't finish his sentence before an electrically charged object barely grazed the pumpkin skin of his face.
Ash looked in the direction the object had come from. The woman from before was staring him down through her helmet. Ash didn't know her identity or even gender, only that she was in his way and catching him at a bad time.
"Look, buddy, I'm not in the mood. Get lost before I chop off your head." The woman didn't budge. Instead, she ran toward him, throwing charged wooden kunai at Ash. Ash blocked using the Blackblood ability. Now, she was in front of him, swinging her bokken as it charged up and scratched his chin. He tried to dodge her, but she was fast, even without a speed ability; her reaction speed and fluidity in her swings were on par with a master kendo practitioner.
Ash summoned Gwar to his hands, and he blocked the next slash, trying to stop her from taking his pumpkin head off. She then kicked his kneecap, dislocating it fast enough for him to go off balance for a second, then be attacked with a judo throw to the ground. Ramming her sword into his stomach, she charged it higher than before, electrocuting him to a degree that every nerve and muscle spasmed violently before passing out. Daredevil tried to help, but the woman threw a disc device at his engine, shocking him and rendering him incapacitated as a result.
Once she felt her mission was complete, she removed her helmet again, sweat flying off her face, and her hair flowed out.
She contacted her superior at the HVA, informing him that she had caught Ash as planned.
"Perfect. Well done, my Raihime. We captured the variable before the Revhounds found out. It was a perfect call to return to the zone to feed again. Seems it craves skulls, particularly Kraegans. It must be on humanity's side if it only wants to kill those abominations, but I want you to bring it back so we can study it and see what exactly it is."
The woman acknowledged. She grabbed the pair of restraints on her belt. Turning around, she saw that Ash was gone. Only a charred spot where his body had been was imprinted. She was ready to grab her bokken, but her hand stopped as she felt an intense vice grip at her wrist. She turned to see Ash standing behind her, his hollow eyes blowing fire out of them. In one swing, he sent her flying above him to the ground, as she had done to him.
Immediately getting back up, she tried to throw origami-shaped shuriken at him. Even with them charged, the shuriken did not work; they burned on contact with Ash.
Ash teleported in front of her, lifting her by the neck, his hand squeezing her throat with tremendous force. It was clear this wasn't Ash in control; it was Darkmold, as the system mentioned earlier, taking over and defending itself from behind, discovered.
"Ignorance, such blissful ignorance. Ye thought thou power was strong enough to make the avatar of death submit. Foolish human!"
The Darkmold spoke; the voice that echoed in Ash's head now spoke aloud.
"Anata, nani desuka!" The woman asked in Japanese who was talking to her. The Darkmold extended the grin of the pumpkin face, the flames within burning ashen white.
"I am the end of all cycles, I am the fear that never dies in your hearts, I am the inevitable finish into silence, I am the haunt in the graveyards, the whispers in the mausoleums, the writings in scripture that foretell the end. I am the one who slew the first Satan and will slay the next. I….am….Death! And you have angered me."
The woman felt it in her bones, down to the marrow. Every cell screaming in fear, every muscle fiber quivering in absolute terror. This wasn't a Kraegan or a human under the influence of ability addiction. The voice made her soul shake; she was looking at something ancient and very infuriated.
The Darkmold raised a hand, forming a white flame in Ash's hand, which pointed straight at the woman's face. The hand trembled, however, refusing to use the flames. The Darkmold knew what it was: Ash trying to regain control of his body as he regained consciousness.
"I see. Hmm, well then." The Darkmold stopped creating the flames, accepting that Ash didn't want to cross that line. It pulled the woman closer to the pumpkin face, letting her see the hollow eyes, which projected its terrifying aura into her.
"Thou art lucky this host only wishes to kill Kraegans. Despite the hate for inhuman justice, the host won't take a human life. I warn you, child, if you come after us again, if you and your keepers pry your noses in our business." The Darkmold's voice lowered further; the sound felt like it was accompanied by every soul it had ever taken in its existence.
"I'LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!!!"
The Darkmold let the woman go, making its way to Daredevil to remove the device that grounded him. Daredevil knew it wasn't Ash, but it couldn't disobey. Using Ash's body, it first levitated the dismembered heads of the Kraegans Ash killed earlier, the hand lifting the heads, trembling from using its power.
"Seems as if I'm not recovered just yet. The seal is breaking, though, and soon I'll be free again. Brom Bones, as promised, I will avenge you, but I will continue my work soon. Until then, have a little snack, little Raven boy."
The Darkmold used its power to burn the heads and devour them all by reducing them to ashes and swallowing them all in one fell swoop.
The flames it used to burn the heads were its own power, something Ash could not use unless he fed.
The Darkmold could feel a total of 81 skulls burning all around Ash's waist. The system didn't pop up to congratulate this victory; it wasn't Ash who did it to earn that praise.
The Darkmold hopped on Daredevil to withdraw before the woman woke up.
The woman, dazed and trembling, still managed to fix herself up using her bokken as a crutch. She immediately called her superior to fill in a report about what happened. It was clear that what they were dealing with was beyond them, and more so, she was too weak to fight back properly. Her grip on her bokken tightened, her teeth clenched in frustration at her powerlessness.
"Kuros, Omae wa kuros!" She vowed to kill Ash and the Darkmold who humiliated her.